How do you provide example calculations for the quantitative section?
the condensed table is a table of data that has all of your important results [ie summery table] often this may be overkill but I like to give avg, range, Standard dev, and sum repeated in their own table again separate from the original table that had all of my data entries. For example calculations I provide the equations I use for each of my statistics. I don’t actually go through and solve them I just think the equations is good enough to get the point for example calculations.
Favorite Events: Experimental Design, Scrambler, Mousetrap Vehicle
Thanks Science Olympiad for the 6 Great Years!
Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened. ― Dr. Seuss
How do you provide example calculations for the quantitative section?
The condensed table, as packer-backer said, is a table of your statistics (i.e., mean, median, mode if relevant, range), as opposed to the full table, which contains all your data.
The example calculations consist of essentially "showing your work" for the statistics- your mean, median, and range (and in C Division, standard deviation, regression, and correlation coefficient) calculations.
Protein Modeling Event Supervisor 2015
MA State Science Olympiad Tournament
MIT Invitational Tournament
--
Ward Melville High School Science Olympiad 2010-2012
Paul J Gelinas JHS Science Olympiad 2007-2009
Do we need a line graph? I did a practice lab in which we rolled a rolled a ball down a ramp at different heights and measured how far it pushed a paper cup. I represented my data in a bar graph, and the person from the C team that was helping us said that it had to be a line graph, so that I could make a line of best fit. However it is possible that he meant that it would have been to better to make a line graph.
You don't have to make a line graph to make a line of best fit. Come to think of it, I think we just plotted the points on the graph, no bar or line, and then made the line of best fit. Scatter plot. It seemed to work, we got 1st at a few competitions, though I can't remember that clearly now a few months after competition.
Olathe North HS, 2011-2013 | National Runner-Up, Sounds of Music (2012) Never lose the joy of competing in the pursuit of winning
Avis_de-Incendia wrote:A more positive acronym would be "Keep It Simple for Success," but I would like to avoid the collective eyeroll.
Anyway, would the proctors take off for an overly simple experiment?
No. Given the subjectivity of the grading of this event, a really obnoxious event sup might be inclined to view your write-up in a slightly less positive light, but in any case it's still better to have a simple experiment and a complex (but still clear and concise... I know, I know, it's difficult to have all three) write-up. Don't make it too hard for yourself.
I actually believe that they do. Last year at Nationals, our team was positive that they had done extremely well, and they were all very experienced experimenters and lap writeup writers. So you can imagine that they were stunned to see that they had placed 47th. I don't actually know what experiment they conducted, but I believe that it was the eye-roll-worthy "analysis" of the effect of the mass of a pendulum on its period. Evidently, the grader didn't look kindly on such a blatant abuse of the openness of the event, given that everyone knows that the period of a pendulum is unaffected by changes in its mass. That said, simpler is definitely better, just as long as you don't take it too far.
Conversely, at our regional competition, one of our two teams did exactly that "experiment," having completely missed the restriction printed in big letters on the assignment that it had to concern friction, and yet still placed in first! The supervisors gave us materials that were extremely difficult to use in a friction-based experiment, and perhaps they realized that and took pity on them rather than disqualifying them. I was on the other team, and they put us in second when we looked at air resistance as a function of height (they gave us balloons).
Albuquerque Academy '10, University of Chicago '14
State: Chemistry Lab 1st, Cell Biology 1st, Ecology 1st, Environmental Chemistry 2nd
Nationals: Chemistry Lab 32nd, Cell Biology 4th, Environmental Chemistry 5th, Forensics 37th
It's hard to accept that for me, there isn't a next year.
From what I've gathered, it seems that catapulting gummy bears was the only way to go with the experiment. Our Experimental Design team didn't exactly take it very seriously- I mean, you're flinging food as a science experiment.
Hershey Science Olympiad 2009 - 2014 Volunteer for Michigan SO 2015 - 2018
they basically gave you the Popsicle stick and bears and told you how to do the experiment,and they helped you, they told us to use our pencils as the fulcrums.
they did the same thing last year (not the same experiment, but they gave the experiment to the competitors).
