2020 Golden Gate Invitational

[NorCalplaya]

Darn, congrats to Mountain View! Even with Troy bombing two events, I'd bet it feels a little good

Not certain if Troy has lost since the 2015 Nationals, but I believe they bombed an event badly at that event too.

2016 Nationals, they hadn't lost since then, either way, big congrats to mountain view

[Umaroth]

Definitely a great job to Mountain View, they're looking good for a long deserved states win

[PM2017]

Definitely a great job to Mountain View, they're looking good for a long deserved states win

I really respect you guys, that standing ovation you guys gave MVHS was really admirable!

Still, even after the PPP issue, you guys only "lost" by 3 points, which is still super scary for everyone else.

[Unome]

Congratulations to Mountain View. I've been waiting for them to start making (bigger) waves for quite a few years now. Even with Troy bombing two events, that's still a great performance.

[Umaroth]

Best part was the gasps when they called Troy 2nd, we knew it was coming but for some reason we didn't have the foresight to record it.

[Umaroth]

I think I'll do some event reviews right now since I'm just sitting around at the hotel breakfast.

Codebusters (2): Overall pretty well run. Wasn't run in the ideal location (classroom with chairs with tiny arm desk things) but the proctors let us sit on the floor so we made do. The test was definitely good length. They didn't allow any errors on the timed question because they accidentally did that in the first block and kept it consistent throughout the day. The test was all quotes from current presidential candidates, so it gave a slight advantage to those who keep up with the news. Knowing a bit about each candidate gave a good starting place for lots of the ciphers (I like their use of Julián Castro for the Xenocrypt haha). My only major complaint was that 700 point Baconian that seemed nearly unsolvable. There was a mistake in the printing and a part of the second line got shifted down to the next line, making it hard to figure out. We got a full solve minus that Baconian and a Vig that we forgot about while trying to figure out the Baconian. Time was 5:11 because it was a longer quote and we messed up a bit and had to retrace. Wilson Cardinal got around 3 minutes for timed, that was the difference between them for 1st and us for 2nd. Overall, I'd give it 8/10.

Detector Building (2): Not really any complaints about this one, it was run very smoothly. Test was good difficulty; not insane random equations like MIT but also not a breeze. I'd guess a score range of somewhere like 20-90%. They did let us see the calibration thermometer during testing, but I'm not going to complain about that hahaha. Probably overall the best running of Detector I've experienced so far. 9/10.

Dynamic Planet (1): That.
Test.
Was.
TORTURE.

11 stations, 3 minutes per station, 327 points total in the test. The stations were mostly free response with a few multiple choice sprinkled in, but the majority of the multiple choice was select all that apply all or nothing. The stations felt quite long too. I thought that the quality of the content itself was very good, but it would have been better if
A) the stations were 4 minutes 30 seconds each, or B) it weren't a station test. 7/10.

Overall Team (2): Overall very well-run invitational as expected. Some of the walks were far, but that's to be expected with a university invitational. The venue for awards was quite beautiful. I did enjoy the later than usual start time (8:00 impound, first block at 9:15), not sure if that's something that GGSO has always done, but it definitely felt pretty good. Awards only ran 5-10 minutes behind what was listed on the program after all the guest speakers. I wish Mr. Dustin Schroeder spoke a bit more about his work, I would have been very interested in it. Congrats to Mountain View for their win. As everyone knows already we had some hiccups with Ping Pong Parachute due to the Northern California rules running it outdoors, but hey, it's just an invitational, no harm done. 10/10.

[windu34]

Circuit Lab - Event Supervisor Review
Hey all, I would first like to apologize for not being able to be present at the tournament to supervise the event in-person. I had an emergency that day and wasn't able to make my flight. Fortunately, my good friend and former Science Olympiad partner was planning to supervise with me and was able to lead the event in my absence.

Alterations from the intended event: Since I had a large majority of the materials for the events with me in Florida that I bring to each tournament, we had to omit a few parts of the labs. Fortunately, this did not seem to significantly impact scores and since my exams are so lengthy anyways, teams were kept busy despite the absence of the physical lab. I will work on doing a write up and including pictures of the breadboard lab components so that teams are able to practice the lab as it was intended.

Analysis of scores: Looking at the scores, the distribution is much different than the other circuit lab exams I have proctored. There are 3 possible reasons I can think of for this:
1.) This test was shorter, easier, and the lab was absent.
2.) Difference in grading than I would typically employ
3.) Teams were better stratified in terms of ability/knowledge
I think (1) is most likely. Given that this kind of distribution is in part what the Circuit Lab C supervising team wants to achieve at nationals, comparing the format and question choices between the GGSO exam and prior MIT/Princeton/Solon/UT_Austin exams will be important.
While the spread between 1-3 and 4-rest was nice to see, I would have preferred to see a larger spread between 1-6 and 7-rest. Additionally, 4-6 weren't quite as well spread as would be ideal. Comparing sccore distributions between all the tournaments and the length/difficulty/format of the respective exams will hopefully provide some insight on how to achieve that.

Finally, if anyone has any questions that they weren't able to ask me at the tournament, please feel free to email me! (Address in signature)

When exams have been publically released by GGSO, it will also be available at the link below:
Exam and Key

I have been asked by the GGSO team to withhold graphs of raw scores for the time being.

[onoga17]

Does anyone know whether or not Troy sent their "full" B team (as in the same team that showed up at Mira Loma)? I'm not sure if I'm overrating them or anything, but I would have expected them to place one or two spots higher considering their past success at invites.

[Rossyspsce]

Does anyone know whether or not Troy sent their "full" B team (as in the same team that showed up at Mira Loma)? I'm not sure if I'm overrating them or anything, but I would have expected them to place one or two spots higher considering their past success at invites.

i think they made some swaps between mira loma and ggso, bc if you look at the events that troy b did better in at mira loma, it was pretty much just the bio events and it seems that the “A” bio people were on troy a for ggso based off score, so naturally troy b takes a hit to their score

[Riptide]

Thanks to everyone who competed at the 2020 Golden Gate Invitational! We hope you enjoyed your time here and hope to see everyone in the future. I know they were already posted, but for reference here are the final results. Scores are considered final so no score appeals may be made. We are very sorry for any grading/scoring mistakes that may have been made and are making efforts to ensure fewer mistakes next year. A survey will be sent to all coaches this week, and upon completion all tests and keys along with score distributions will be sent to attending teams. The tests/keys will be publicly released within a month. Photos of the tournament will be posted on goldengateso.com within the next week (no closeups of competitors builds will be posted).

To anyone who competed this year, we really value any feedback y'all have on specific events or how the tournament was run in general. Please feel free to post any feedback on scioly.org like Umaroth did earlier or send an email to [email protected]. Thanks once again and see everyone next year!