Uncle Science Olympiad Needs You 41
Devlin-du-GEnie writes "I'll be judging an event for Florida's state Science Olympiad this coming weekend. It's kind of like a track meet of science and engineering. The participants are middle- and high-school students from all over Florida. (There are also two elementary school divisions.) I judged an event last year. It was incredibly rewarding to see kids fiercely competitive and engaged with problem solving. It's chock-full of geekly joy." Read on for some more details, including how you can get involved in the program.
The menu of events includes:
- Bottle Rocket
- Cell Biology
- Chemistry Lab
- Designer Genes
- Disease Detectives
- Dynamic Planet
- Experimental Design
- Robot Ramble
- Storm the Castle (catapaults!)
- Naked Egg Drop
Re:A word from the Florida olympiad committee (Score:2, Interesting)
An Alternative (Score:4, Informative)
For anyone considering helping out at any such event, don't forget an employer might be willing to pay your way in return for the good PR they'd get.
Question... (Score:2)
Now this isnt something I want to be searching from work.. anyone heard of this?
Re:Question... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Question... (Score:2)
Re:Question... (Score:2)
The "naked egg drop" is a hAX0R competition where you try to take down machines with older operating systems using malformed network packets while wearing no clothes.
ah, olympics (Score:3, Interesting)
Then they [olympic.org] came and sued everyone to make them rename their organizations...
Ah, simpler times, back when I used to watch WWF.
An Innocent Question (Score:4, Insightful)
I know this will be interpreted as a troll but I'm really interested in the answer. Is any attempt made at determining whether these kids get help from their parents? Is it done by the honor system? I would think that meddling from over-excited parents would be a significant factor in these science olympiads (kinda of the equivalent of steroids in the real olympics).
I remember back when I was in 5th grade the class had to build 'solar cookers' that we could use to cook our lunch for that day. Mine was passable but not great. Scott L., had a solar cooker you wouldn't believe. I was struggling to get enough heat in there to cook weenies and he was heating frozen pizzas, I kid you not. Not too surprisingly Scott's father was a high-school science teacher. Now it is theoretically possible that Scott was simply a smarter kid than I was (although it's worth noting that years later I would go on to get a Ph. D. in a scientific field from one of the most prestidous science institutes in the world and Scott did not) but I think we can pretty much agree that it's more likely the reason for Scott's superior performance was because he had considerable help from parents whereas I built my thing with my own two (small) hands.
That was over two decades ago. In that time parents, if anything, have gotten even more insistent that their kids perform better than their peers. Parents so often push their kids to excel just so they can brag about them at work or at the local garden club meeting or whatnot. So I ask you, how much of a problem is parental-assistance in these science olympiads in this day and age and how do you deal with it?
GMD
Re:An Innocent Question (Score:4, Informative)
Re:An Innocent Question (Score:3, Interesting)
There was a paper airplane toss, you had to build it at the meet, but you could spend as much time before hand coming up with what you thought was the perfect plane. The winner was the plane that flew the farthest.
Re:An Innocent Question (Score:2, Interesting)
I think you are also not taking into account that most of the events are information recall, and problem solving on paper: not just engineering events like the balsa tower and egg drop. Parents can do very little to help there, except help their kids learn
Re:An Innocent Question (Score:1, Funny)
Damn straight! You really showed that cheating little punk Scott! And even better, now all of Slashdot knows it! Man, I'd hate to be that guy right now. You the man!
Re:An Innocent Question (Score:1)
The answer is that no, no attempt is usually made to determine if there was parental aid. Of course there is some parental help in some cases. However, as has been pointed out, having outside help usually only comes in handy
Re:An Innocent Question (Score:3, Interesting)
Many of the events require on-the-spot stuff. Those that don't, yes, its possible. Years ago I built a egg launcher with a few friends for a Sci Olympiad competition, and my father came up with the idea of a composite-core catapult arm(aluminum shower curtain rod, which is what we had been using, only with a wood core glued in. Tt worked, we stopped bending the arm...and yes, we were usin
Re:An Innocent Question (Score:2)
Re:An Innocent Question (Score:1)
Mission Possible (Score:3, Interesting)
funny thing is (Score:2)
No mission possible?! (Score:2)
Re:No mission possible?! (Score:1)
And if you didn't like where Truman State was located, you should have gone to college in the "Middle of Everywhere" like I did, Rolla, MO!
Science Olympiad rocks! (Score:2, Interesting)
For me personally, it was something that a geek could excel in and interactively work with others and enjoy versus just sitting with the book. Plus, I love ti
Re:Science Olympiad rocks! (Score:2)
I competed in that during high school.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Science Olympiad is a blast to judge too! (Score:3, Insightful)
After I got my own college physics lab to run, I ran the entire physics lab portion of the Science Olympiad for 3 years. I got to do both the regional and the state competitions. I was enthusiastic about the future after seeing what these kids could do!
I'm now at my third school and Science Olympiad is comming up. It's a great event to be involved with!
Science Olympiad (Score:1)
I remember (Score:1)
I remember the first one in New York, in 1983 (Score:1)
Great Program (Score:2)
I've met more than a few scientists/engineers over the years who were in Science Olympiad. I was in it every year of middle and high school, although the best years were in middle school. The students at Peirce were blessed to have one of the best coaches around (Charlotte Nighton), and my middle school team went to nationals all four years I was eligible to be a team member. The whole experience was a blast, and it helped make an otherwise miserable middle school experience livable. There need to be mo
Organizing a team (Score:2, Informative)
You know you're getting old when (Score:2, Funny)
You see an event like this and wonder "why didn't my high school do this when I was there?" only to realize that the event didn't exist yet when you were in high school.
Science Olympiads is over-rated (Score:3, Insightful)
I decided that I didn't like SO after watching big high schools stomp little high schools into dust. This is a time when people's egos are very fragile, and there is simply too much importance put on those "bronze", "silver", and "gold" medals. With smaller schools, kids would have to take on multiple events to qualify, which is a real burden. Also, schools with helpful parents fare much better, especially for the construction events. Building a rube-goldberg machine is a bit easier if someone's dad has a garage full of junk or works for a surplus store.
The nationals were very sensationalistic, too. Not to mention far away, meaning many people were disappointed when their stuff got there broken.
Unsportsmanlike Conduct (Score:2, Insightful)
The contest? Hot house. The goal, using the lightest mass fully enclosed "house" possible, try and insulate 100mL beaker of 100 water. Basically, the judges would fill a beaker for you, you'd place it in your device, and they'd take the temperature after 30 minutes.
The scoring was something like: deltaT*mass, and lowest score wins. deltaT measured in degrees Celsius and mass in grams. It didn't
I'm doing that! (Score:2)
Actually, our team is doing states up here in New Jersey, having moved on from regionals by default.
Ehem. This requires some explaining.
Our high school had never before fielded a Science Olympiad team and we figured that our first time would be just a learning experience and didn't expect to do well. There is an event called "Sounds of Music" where you build two instruments and play Chester, and answer a few music related questions. We didn't have time to build the