CAKE

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A Cake for Virginia and Amanda

Meet 4 Events

Alright, c'mon guys. We need you all to show up at the meetings, because we've been doing progressively worse at meets. We have meetings every Wednesday, so start coming after the vacation. We don't expect you to do any preparation over the break (take the vacation off), but if you want to go ahead.

Okay, here we go. Meet 4 info:
Thursday, January 15th, 2009 @ Reading High School

Events:

• Elevated Bridge - Build some kind of bridge
• Oceanography - Study of the ocean and ocean patterns
• Cell Biology - Study of cells in Biology
  
• Remote Sensing - Mars studying and other planets, but mostly Mars

So just think about what event you might want to do over vacation. Yes, think about it all vacation long. Yes. We'll assign meet 4 events after vacation, as well as states events.

Meet 3 Summary

How many crying babies should I have posted here? Let me answer as you would a Fermi question: 4. Yes, that means over 9000 crying babies.

Evolution - 7th place
Fermi Questions - 10th place
Ecology - 13th place
Forensics - 15th place

That brings us down to 12th place overall. :'(

Meet 3 Resources

Ecology:

http://soinc.org/ecology_c

Evolution:

Sorry, nothing from us for you guys.  Try googling around.

Fermi Questions:

Don't suck at guessing

Forensics:

http://soinc.org/forensics_c

Meet 3 Events

Alright guys, sorry for being so bad with filling you in on Meet 3, but you should have a good idea if you've been coming to the Wednesday meetings, which you should have been going to.  And if you haven't been? Phooey on you.  Now let's get down to business.

3rd meet:

Thursday, December 11th 2008 @ Belmont High School

That's THIS Thursday! PREPARE!

Events:

• Ecology - Students will answer questions involving content knowledge and process skills in the area of ecology and adaptations in featured North American biomes.
• Evolution - Contestants will rotate from station to station, integrating content knowledge and process skills in the area of biological evolution. 
• Fermi Questions - Guessing the number of ______ in _______
• Forensics - Analysis and recreation of a crime scene

In case you forgot what event you are doing, see here.

2nd Meet Summary

Yeah, that's our meet summary. Here's a little more detailed synopsis:

Electric Vehicle: 7th Place
Keep The Heat: 10th Place
Wind Power: 13th Place
Health Science: 14th Place

This brings our overall ranking down to 9th place (tied with another team). All right guys, we really need to step it up for next meet. It's go time.

Also, please post sweatshirt designs and ideas in the comment section of the appropriate blog post. We want to get these sweatshirts by the next meet, so that means we need designs in by next Friday, November 21st.

Sweatshirts

Ideas? Post them in the comments, and also vote for your favorites in the comments, too.

We want to get the sweatshirts for the next meet, so we need designs in by Friday, November 21st.

If you are graphic-design savvy, you can check out:
Inkscape - vector graphics editor. Difficulty Curve: small. We prefer if you used this.
GIMP - raster graphics editor. Difficulty curve: moderate. Powerful.
Paint.NET - raster graphics editor. Difficulty curve: small. (Windows only)

Use http://tinypic.com and post an image of your design, and link to it in the comments. If you need any help, just ask Cam or Costas.

Scioly States Events

Click here to see the event descriptions for states.

Same password as last time, guys.

Not all those events are in states; those are just the rules for all events in nationals.  At MA states, we will have:

Astronomy
Cell Biology
Chemistry Lab
Disease Detective
Dynamic Planet
Ecology
Electric Vehicle
Elevated Bridge
Forensics
Fossils
Health Science
Herpetology
It's About Time
Junkyard Challenge
Physics Lab
Remote Sensing
Rocks and Minerals
Technical Problem Solving
Trajectory
Write It/Do It

TRIAL EVENTS:
Evolution
Picture This
We've Got Your Number
Wind Power


NOW SIGN UP, PUNKS.

Meet 2 Event Resources

Health Science:
Tons of links, as well as a practice test here

Electric Car:
Nothing yet, but hopefully there will be a video of electric cars and some help
Pictures of last year's Electric Car made with Alex Way's K'Nex. That design won 1st place, but feel free to modify it. If you want help and want to reconstruct it, talk to Kevin or Costas.

Keep the Heat:
Ask Costas what not to do. No links here just yet.

Wind Power:
Sorry, nothing for you either. Read the event description and practice making wind machines with the materials that you will receive during the event.

Meet 1 Summary, Meet 2 Events

1st Meet Synopsis:

Egg-O-Naut: 3rd place

Physics Lab: 3rd place

Mystery Architecture: 9th place

Astronomy: 12th place

Combining these individual placements, we are currently ranked 5th among other teams. Keep up the good work Wayland! Congratulations to our Egg-O-Naut and Physics Lab teams!

2nd Meet:
Thursday, November 13th, 2008 @ Burlington High School

The titles of the events are links to the rules. Event parameters are denoted as | X, B | where X is the number of people that can do the event, and a B denotes if B teams are allowed. If B teams are allowed, we can have multiple teams of X people doing that event.

Events:

• Health Science | 4, B| - an event encompassing the anatomy and physiology of the nervous and circulatory systems, and the effect of disease and drugs on the health of those systems
  
• Electric Car | 4, B | - build a vehicle, only powered by electricity, that can be tuned right before the event to travel a given distance between 5 and 10 meters
• Keep the Heat | 4 | - build a device that can retain the temperature of boiling water as effectively as possible
• Wind Power | 4, B | - build a propeller system attached to a CD that generates the most voltage from a breeze

Health Science is a testing event, and Wind Power is an on-site building event. Keep the Heat and Electric Car are both pre-build events.
Please comment on which event you would like to do.

Meet 1 Event Resources

Physics Lab
Physics Lab resource page
Past exams from ^
Equation sheet from ^

Astronomy
Astronomy resource page
USE WIKIPEDIA. Wikipedia is a fantastic resource for astronomy. If you have a laptop and want to bring that to the event, save the wikipedia pages locally (ask Cam or myself if you don't know how to do this). For this regional meet, you can bring both a laptop and a 3-ring binder, but you have to choose which you want to bring for states (you can't bring both).

Egg-O-Naut:
Scioly Forums - Egg O Naut

Egg-O-Naut Resource page. This page is currently empty, but hopefully they'll get some links up soon.

Mystery Architecture:

Although this is an on-site building event, you can certainly practice for it before the meet. Take a bunch of random household supplies (tape, popsicle sticks, paper clips, metal wire coat hangers, toothpicks, index cards, etc.) and practice making sturdy structures with them. Two very common tasks are 1) build the tallest structure you can with the given materials and 2) build a sturdy structure that can support a given weight, but the highest of the supportive structures wins.

In any case, you can always use Google for help.  Don't reinvent the wheel.  Look up structures that have worked in the past, etc (helpful for building events).

Meet 1 Event Assignments

Physics Lab: Costas, Evan, Cam, Alex
Astronomy: Seti, Miriam, Laura, Aaron
Mystery Architecture: June, Mat, Michael, Luke
Egg-O-Naut: Amanda, Grace, Kevin, Fahad, (June), (Luke), (Surj), (Virginia)

Names in parentheses will help prepare for the event, but won't actually do the event at the meet.

Please show up to Wednesday meetings. We will be assembling teams based on meeting attendance and "blog attendance" (ie, whoever posts on the blog to do events)

Meet 1 Events

Click here to enter password for event description links

(The password was emailed to everybody; I'm required to not make these available to the public, only team members, for legal reasons, hence the password.)

Events:
Astronomy - "identify deep sky objects and solve astronomy problems." Testing event, research required. 4 people.
Egg-O-Naut - "design, construct, and launch rockets to stay aloft and carry a raw egg without breaking." Prebuilding, many people (only 4 at meet).
Mystery Architecture - build something with materials they give you based on a challenge presented when you show up. E.G. build a tower from paper and popsicle sticks. Rules (not an official states event), B teams allowed.
Physics Lab - Physics lab. Testing & lab experiments; not for noobs. 4 people, seniors only.

Comment on this post to sign up for an event -- not everybody can get what they sign up for.

Permission Slips

Hey guys,

We handed out permission slips during the meeting today to by signed by parents.  If you didn't get one, download the posted one, print it out and get it signed.  There are also some extras in the science building, on the bulletin board right outside the science reference center.

We need these forms back as soon as possible.  If you do not get them in, you will not be able to come to the regional meets, or states, so GET THEM IN.  Give the signed permission forms to either Mr. Stevens, Cam or myself if you see us in school, or if not you can drop them off in my school mailbox (Class of 2009, mailbox #4).  Please get them signed by Friday if you can, or at the very latest before our next meeting (next Wednesday).  If you do give them to Mr. Stevens, post a comment to this blog post so I can mark you off.  Thanks.

Here are the people who are all set.

First Meeting, First Meet

Hello all! Get ready for scioly 08-09; even less professional than last year!

First meeting:
Wednesday Sept. 24th, 2008
After school (1:05 PM) till 2:00 PM in the Science Reference Center. Everybody be there! We're going to assign events for the first meet, for states, and then set up regular meeting times for the rest of the year.

First meet:
Thursday Oct. 16th, 2008 @ AB HS.
Events: (start thinking about which you want to do)
Astronomy - Open to all, "identify deep sky objects and solve astronomy problems." Testing event, research required.
Egg-O-Naut - Open to all, prebuilding, "design, construct, and launch rockets to stay aloft and carry a raw egg without breaking."
Mystery Architecture - Freshman/sophomores only, build something with materials they give you based on a challenge presented when you show up. E.G. build a tower from paper and popsicle sticks.
Physics Lab - Seniors only. Physics lab. Testing & lab experiments; not for noobs.

Event rules will be posted after the first meeting.