2018 Princeton University Invitational

[windu34]

I felt like the Remote Sensing test was very well madr, as it wasn't absurdly long (MIT lol) but thoroughly tested knowledge in all areas. It was also neat that studying tips were provided for each part.

Would it be possible to know what people generally found hardest/easiest on the test?

Yeah, let's see aggregate data from that survey! How did people's estimates of their scores compare to their actual scores, I know we estimated like 50% and got like 10% higher than that...

It was a good test but I guess overall for me, maybe because I've done this event so many times, it just feels like practice comparing my skills to other teams and although there were facts I missed there wasn't really anything where I went wow I have never thought about this before.

Interesting point, i am curious to see how i can combine different aspects of the event to bring about new and interesting questions that have more application in them to make it more interesting. This will definitely be evident in the next test that i write

(Sorry for the double post, at the airport rn and not the most tech-savvy on my phone)

[whythelongface]

Time for the day-after review! Overall, it was a long day, and not all of it was enjoyable, but that wasn't because of the competition itself.

Fermi Questions: A good solid test by the legend himself (not going to namedrop here, but you know who he is. He also supervised the DP test this year and Astro last year...). Standard questions, starting out with a few about Princeton, and then branching into many many different subjects and areas. Just a decent test overall.

Herpetology: I know nothing about herpetology, but as someone who does know how to do binder ID events, I'm disappointed that the majority of the images were projected onto a screen and switched, station-style. For someone whose vision isn't exactly great, how hard would it have been to set up actual stations with those images? Can't comment on the quality of the test though, since I don't know anything about the subject.

Remote Sensing: Solid test, good calculations, decent image interpretation, this test is slightly harder than what I'm usually accustomed to but it was enjoyable and a decent test overall.

Rocks and Minerals: A few new concepts actually popped up during the test, which was actually really surprising. The identification was standard, but the theory stuff was more difficult, including the TAS diagram and stuff about the CCD (thankfully, preparations for Ocean Bowl made that one slightly less challenging, although I definitely still got stuff wrong because I was running short on time). Station length was timed very well, making it very difficult to complete stations, although it wasn't impossible if you knew everything very well. A good test, and good job to whoever wrote it.

[pikachu4919]

Herpetology: I know nothing about herpetology, but as someone who does know how to do binder ID events, I'm disappointed that the majority of the images were projected onto a screen and switched, station-style. For someone whose vision isn't exactly great, how hard would it have been to set up actual stations with those images? Can't comment on the quality of the test though, since I don't know anything about the subject.

Keep in mind that the original writers of the test were unable to be there to proctor it themselves.

Edit: this is actually what I did once when I wrote an Invasive Species test last year and couldn't be there to proctor it myself, I did a powerpoint with all the specimens that timed itself

[CrayolaCrayon]

(NVM)

[roadscholar11]

My reviews:

Remote Sensing: a solid test overall; it covered all topics well and had an appropriate difficulty level. The math was a bit easier than I was expecting, but I liked how some of the math questions were really creative (#methaneCowsFTW).

Dynamic Planet: easily the most tragic test I've ever taken, out of Science Olympiad, out of regular classes, out of anything I've found online...it had so many random and tough concepts from geology that we ended up guessing on pretty much everything past the first page, and I didn't even realize that there was a guessing penalty on the multiple choice... I'm surprised that we did so well (20th!)

Experimental Design: well-run, interesting topic, not much to say here.

Game On: the topic was a little silly, to say the least. I felt pretty iced after that event. Nice touch with having two people grade the game then averaging the scores! I haven't seen this done at any tournament so far, but I would imagine that having two people grade substantially reduces the randomness involved in grading this event.

Hovercraft: the test was a little short/easy for 40 minutes, but it was a solid test that covered most of the mechanics event topics well. The last question in particular was really interesting and we spent most of the time working on that question, although I thought Scioly wasn't supposed to ask questions that require Calculus? I wish there had been a bit more fluid dynamics questions, but it was a fine test overall. Kudos to the really nice scratch paper the supervisor provided!

[IcsTam]

I'll post some reviews:

Disease: Very well-written test. I liked how they utilized a lot of statistics -- it's more true to the actual field of epidemiology.

Game On: I thought the theme was somewhat juvenile, but it was definitely my fault to not take advantage of that fact.

Materials Science: I thought the test very accurately met the parameters of the rules. I actually thought it was better than the MIT test. I ended up going in alone, and it was definitely too long for a single person to take, but that's a good thing.

Hovercraft: That last question was very difficult. I also thought it was a little light on fluid mechanics, but nonetheless. The actual event ran fairly smoothly, as well. No complaints on the set-up.

[knottingpurple]

Okay, I'll do the same thing as whythelongface:

Dynamic Planet: I feel like everyone who's seen me in person since I finished this event has already heard about my misery about not realising there was a guessing penalty on the multiple choice (and clearly roadscholar11 had the same problem), so we won't talk about that any more. It was a hard test (like from our percentage score you would never imagine we would have placed where we did), but at least it had a lot of different sections so most teams should have been able to do some part of it. The section on the floor was difficult, but fun, like, that's the type of real interpretation we're supposed to have to do and never do (I feel like most teams didn't even go down and try it though, which is upsetting). Loses points for the anime at the end though. Like seriously why.

Game On: I still don't know how I'm supposed to judge this event - the computers worked? That's always good? Maybe the event supervisors could've discussed their grading slightly quieter when we were in the room, I guess to some teams it might've been annoying when they kept trying to figure out if something did or did not count as a maze? But that wasn't like so distracting we couldn't work or something. I think like Yale, having such a straightforward-seeming topic probably hurt a lot of teams in the subjective categories because probably a lot of them made very similar games.

Remote Sensing: It's funny because on the survey, whythelongface marked his sections harder than I marked mine (I did the climate stuff onwards, which I guess more people struggle with as a rule, so I marked it being harder), but since then, I've said that the test seemed not too difficult and he said it was difficult. But not in any way that made the event inaccurate or something, I've probably taken too many remsen tests and gotten used to a lot of the problem types and I guess I just really want to see another test like the one from Nats last year. Still really sweet of windu providing tips on how to study stuff, it's really such an intimidating event that I feel like that test would otherwise put a lot of people off from trying again.

Thermodynamics: I never did this event before, and the test was definitely too hard for me to guess my way through, so that was all done by my partner - I might've handled, like, a couple of history and multiple choice questions. Impound seemed competent, the water pouring seemed competent, and I'm sure that if I knew more about thermo I'd be able to say that it was a pretty good test - in our other pairing, one of the freshmen was doing the event and apparently a problem required calculus so it sounds pretty difficult.

[CrayolaCrayon]

Astronomy: A very well written test. It was a lot of fun to take and was very well structured. A good portion required that you had in-depth knowledge of the DSOs.

Remote Sensing: A well thought out test, and was structured in a way to teach and improve performance.

Herpetology: Required that you didn't just know about the creatures themselves, but also Herpetology in general; was very long and fun.

[Raleway]

Guess I'll follow suit:

Fermi: Even though some questions made me laugh, I felt some of them were ridiculous such as finding the total area of one game's virtual map. Why? Overall, decent test with the first half or so being straight up recall and the second some probability and application of guessing. The last section was interesting but obviously, the test was divided such that there were tiers of difficulty. Also interesting to put all teams in the impound slot; I had to get up really early for that and the test area was quite loud with everyone taking it- not the biggest fan but I'm sure Princeton had its reason for doing that.

Materials Science: Interesting test that tested much of what we needed to know. The organic chemistry I felt was quite harsh, despite its low quantity but being a substantial amount of the score. No one problem was "unknown," but some parts were hard to understand. In explanation, might be nice to know how many of something to list. One example was a quick "Explain the difference between a thermoplastic and a thermoset." Definitely, the wording of "the difference" means a singular reason but so many tests have looked for two or three differences and it's not that teams don't know them; it's because teams are scrambling to finish and just put one. IR was easy and didn't pose much of a challenge but the lab was interesting... no free weights for Young's Modulus and the rubber bands were really, really finicky.

Helicopters: Not the best room to fly in and was a little too small for my liking, but there was no gaping hole that many people complained about from last year. Had to wait a while to get winding and flying. Nothing much to complain about, however.

Towers: Decent table, decent stage, supervisor knew not to touch tower, but the hoop was... heavy and jagged? Don't know if it was a last minute thing but ended up being ok. The scoreboard was fine. Overall smooth

Overall, Princeton ran really well. From what my team said and other friends, there were no major hiccups. Like Unome said, we are just nitpicking, especially for this invitational. Nothing broke on Game On, and they even averaged scores which is really nice as it helps objectify scores. I would actually rate the experience better than MIT as the maps were so much nicer and buildings much easier to find (grouped together). Each building in front had a list of what was inside or what was NOT inside. Lunch break really helped us all catch a break and reset for the evening, and the awards started on time with a really interesting talk on Astro and quite the nice music from Opus 21. This is how an invitational should be run, where you don't even realize how good it is because it's so smooth and nothing veered off the path. Thank you to all the Princeton crew and staff that helped make the day as good as it was!

[knottingpurple]

Overall, Princeton ran really well. From what my team said and other friends, there were no major hiccups. Like Unome said, we are just nitpicking, especially for this invitational. Nothing broke on Game On, and they even averaged scores which is really nice as it helps objectify scores. I would actually rate the experience better than MIT as the maps were so much nicer and buildings much easier to find (grouped together). Each building in front had a list of what was inside or what was NOT inside. Lunch break really helped us all catch a break and reset for the evening, and the awards started on time with a really interesting talk on Astro and quite the nice music from Opus 21. This is how an invitational should be run, where you don't even realize how good it is because it's so smooth and nothing veered off the path. Thank you to all the Princeton crew and staff that helped make the day as good as it was!

Ditto about the music and the speaker - normally I wish invites wouldn't have speakers, it feels like just a way of stalling while grading runs too long and I'd rather spend that time like eating or something, but this was interesting and not incomprehensible even to somebody who doesn't do astro, and the music was definitely a great idea, it may not have been science related but it was very enjoyable. Plus they didn't skip any events during awards, there was no extra long break, so I'm sure a lot of people had to work really hard behind the scenes to get everything done on time but I really appreciated it!