Team selections

[jinhusong]

We have 3 teams, with Blue has most of best students.
We have mocking competition to select new comer. Besides previous medals, we also check attendance of Saturday school to decide who get into Blue team.

You mentioned a Saturday school, is this like a club meeting or an optional school day or a 3rd party organization that prepares you for scioly

It is like club meeting. 9:00AM-1:00PM. One teacher will be there so we can use the classroom. Sign-in, sign-out, so teacher can also get a little compensation. Captains will divide the time to different event groups.

[Arpitr20]

We have 3 teams, with Blue has most of best students.
We have mocking competition to select new comer. Besides previous medals, we also check attendance of Saturday school to decide who get into Blue team.

You mentioned a Saturday school, is this like a club meeting or an optional school day or a 3rd party organization that prepares you for scioly

It is like club meeting. 9:00AM-1:00PM. One teacher will be there so we can use the classroom. Sign-in, sign-out, so teacher can also get a little compensation. Captains will divide the time to different event groups.

Aish we need a motivated club advisor like that

[Arpitr20]

My school does something similar to this, we hold a separate test for each event. These are composed of questions from actual tests, but they are not full length and each one lasts 20 minutes. Everyone is allowed the resources they would normally be allowed in actual competition based on the rules. For build events, everyone trying out has to submit blueprints which our build coordinator and the engineering teacher at my school look over. There is also a basic test on the rules for the build events. Last year there was a physical build test in which people trying out had to build a cube of specified dimensions from balsa wood sticks. However, we decided to remove this because it had more of a focus on structural events rather than all build events. In most cases, people that were on the A team the previous year, especially those that performed well, are given priority to get on the A team once again because they have already experienced higher level competition. (They still have to take the tests like everyone else)

Hmm... and does your teacher make the questions? My schools teachers arent super invested and so any form of test taking would likely have to be made by the students or exist online... I would be willing to out together the tests but I dont want to exempt myself from the test-taking process.

What are your thoughts on allowing notes for the tests?

Alumni write the tests for us although this isn't feasible for a new team. There's a captains test exchange that could be used for tryouts. I think allowing notes would be better then not doing so.

Hmm, how can I join the captain's test exchange?

[HuskyLove]

For our school, we have the students trying out sign up for what events they want, but we don't have build event tryouts. Any lab portions are also eliminated.
However, here's two aspects where I think our school might differ:
1. Tests are written by A-team students. This is because in our team, anyone who was on A-team this year does not need to try out again next year. However, people on B-team do have to re-tryout. Which brings me to my second point.
2. Students are not allowed to use cheat sheets, binders, etc. In fact, some events don't even allow calculators on tryouts. I'm not entirely sure why, but my thinking was this: three middle schools funnel into our high school, but only one of them has a Science Olympiad team, and it's a pretty decent one too. In addition, you have old members trying out again. These people likely already have access to notes and materials, and if we allowed them to bring in these notes they already have while everybody else has to make their own, that would be an extremely unfair advantage.

[19alekb]

what my team does is have a general knowledge test and then a test based off a big packet or text book that you are given. the study test is worth more than the general knowledge test. it works pretty well because it shows who is going to work hard.

[Arpitr20]

For our school, we have the students trying out sign up for what events they want, but we don't have build event tryouts. Any lab portions are also eliminated.
However, here's two aspects where I think our school might differ:
1. Tests are written by A-team students. This is because in our team, anyone who was on A-team this year does not need to try out again next year. However, people on B-team do have to re-tryout. Which brings me to my second point.
2. Students are not allowed to use cheat sheets, binders, etc. In fact, some events don't even allow calculators on tryouts. I'm not entirely sure why, but my thinking was this: three middle schools funnel into our high school, but only one of them has a Science Olympiad team, and it's a pretty decent one too. In addition, you have old members trying out again. These people likely already have access to notes and materials, and if we allowed them to bring in these notes they already have while everybody else has to make their own, that would be an extremely unfair advantage.

Hmm I think the logic behind no notes makes a lot of sense. We definitely cant give everyone on the A team retryouts because first, we have no seniors so well receive 0 fresh blood, and only 6-8 students in the A team were super motivated this year, and the new freshmen will definitely be more motivated than some on the team.

[Anonymous15]

Yeah, I always felt that test writing was a problem for our school too. It would be nice if we could find other ways to get tests for all events rather than through our upperclassmen (though having upperclassmen writing the tests definitely makes sense, it would put some stress for my school in particular because of our system). Are there any others on here that have methods that have worked really well for their team?