week 14.9 - raisbeck overview

HII it is january 18 currently and we are sitting in an auditorium ... as people are trying and failing to make a human table where the definition of physics is twisted---

oh hey we're back uh after one round of human tables that we (ve won yay :Skull:

anyways...

if you're wondering why im writing the above jumbled plot, i currently sit in the raisbeck aviation high school auditorium watching people play scattegories for the eponymous science olympiad invitational

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Cut

so um they actually started announcing awards LMAO so i put away my computer but yeah erm individually it was pretty subpar

i feel like nunez or like werner or something idk maybe nunez is a better descriptor bc i have the backgrround knowledge and the basic build skills but the finishing is not there

let's like briefly run through events

sustainable energy -

test was literally sat reading comprehension from a text and a youtube video they provided

build was slightly cooked because ours was kind of heavy and like it didn't really get that much voltage because the coins were not only pretty rusted but also like actually not pure metal electrodes sooo-

but then.

the fucking annoying part.

we got the joint highest test score

and we had a subpar but still not terrible build testing score.

our raw score was 3rd. however we finished 7th. why?

forgetting to label our terminal wires tiered us :sob:

anyways i also found a frickin error within their spreadsheet because they divided a cell value by a minimum of a set of cells that could have 0 as their values- so nobody got any points for the efficiency section of the battery LMAO so the battery actually didn't really matter in this one-

and might not matter for other ones if someone decides to pull up with a build with mass 0 grams hmmmm-

quantum quandaries-

ok tbh not much to say about this, comfortable sweep although im sure with vishnu at states and regs it wont be so comfortable but i was very out of it after having to tend to the susE impound. tbh builds take so much energy compared to just taking tests...

aryan is locked in for math things lol

chem lab-

holy fuck we're so cooked i think total was 110 points on the test and we only got like 93.5 (4th) despite me being almost positive that we got the entire thing.

metathesis reactions i will never forget

same for the synthesis of carbon disulfide

aaand idek what else we got wrong cause wtf? howd we lose 17 points man

dont say its sigfigs .... :(

i dont know what happened because they haven't posted the key and the test yet so like-

also there actually was a lab portion this time !!

i think it was fine? electrochem is usually fine tbh i think we could've poached 2nd (2.5 points) but it's worrying that 1st is so far out of sight (11.5 points)

optics -

damn um we got outclassed entirely on the test section :(

58 - 77 is a nonnegligible difference i'm afraid but also same thing bc i thought the test was alright (not too sure about the mcq though)

and i think we're getting pretty good at this laser shoot business because i genuinely used pairs of parallel lines and took advantage of the barrier lol i really like the simplicity of my laser shoot designs and im going to keep thinking about the geometry of it in future preparation cause i think this strategy has a lot of potential if i dont have time to make templates

also bruh we were the first team to do the laser shoot and the people spent 5min figuring out rules and how many lines we crossed despite the amount of lines not actually affecting our score

they prob also got distracted af so they marked our FUCKING BARRIER MIRROR wrong and im so confused because i kept talking about the barrier during the setup period and they ignored it ?? ?? ???

so done with parent supervisors man

so currently we sit 4th but this may improve to 2nd.... we'll see if things happen...

matsci -

got mostly carried thanks carol

um also contributed negatively to score because i did not realise last night when carol told me a mask was needed that she meant for the event specifically so we couldn't do the lab but i guess we learn...

either way we displayed optics2024-level dominance on our test score but clearly without a lab section we were handicapped

but also our frickin puck lost a tiny corner and got cooked at 20cm BRUH im actually so sad man maybe we should pick the intermediately porous ones so that it's less obvious when it breaks next time....... and take better care maybe even sanding off the edges

either way super happy w 2nd

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anyways overall super duper happy to be able to be a part of interlake scioly history because GUESS WHAT WE WON WE ACTUALLY WON SOMETHING ASJFUIOQERHJGNUIOQEHJRGUOWJDIOJVUIOQEHNU

(coming from a tottenham hotspur fan this is even more heartfelt)

im so happy for the entire team and im sure this will only give us more motivation to keep doing better and studying because we have a chance. we really do and i believe it now. im not afraid to admit that i never believed before today, before 1st place was announced, but now i do. i really do.

and we kind of have taken over tesla's old spot of being like consistent across all events and winning overall with a less (but still competitive) amount of first places

and this really just feeds back into my understanding of science olympiad as a team sport more than anything because individual brilliance will not get a team very far like before--it's those 4th places, 5th places, and consistent podium presences that silently keeps the team's score down and im glad we're at an edge right now more than ever before in doing that.

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texas expectations?

well it's 11:27 pm and i have to wake up at 6:30 am tomorrow so i think it's pretty cooked for texas LOL

im like quite tired today but im happy

erm

maybe some expectations here

team expectations

• win rr group

• get to top 8

higher expectations:

• win de 1

• get to top 6

individual expectations

• 24 ppg in rr

• not mentally die in de 1/2

• get questions at a nonzero rate if we make de4+

alrighty time to rest