Next Meeting RESCHEDULED

Our next meeting has been rescheduled and will be on WEDNESDAY, 11/19.
Come prepared to discuss your progress, take tests (for academic problems), and bring rule books. You have been emailed as well. I understand there were a lot of conflict so needed to reschedule. Thanks.

Coaches' and Volunteer Training - UPDATE

I received the following message from the State Director with regards to the Training which would have been held this Saturday.

Unfortunately there is a conflict with our use of facilities for saturday's proposed training. I have tried my best to relocate our event for saturday but have been unable to find any other facility that we can get immediate approval for. We were trying to avoid the outrageous fees associated with renting our own facilities in a public school building so that this could be offered for free. I am working to find a new location with two dates in mind Saturday, November 22nd or Saturday, December 6. However there will likely be a fee associated with attending in order to offset our building use costs. I apologize for any inconvenience this will cause however in order to offer the tech and lab trainings we wanted it was unavoidable.

In addition unless more people step up to help lead event sessions the training will only include the following:

2 hour tech event/engineering training
2 hour lab event training
1 hour coaches strategies session
45 minute meeting with the Director about tournament policies and procedures

Please understand that board members and other volunteers are already committing a great deal of time to putting other things together. Trainings in other states are only successful when people volunteer to help run sessions. One of my earlier emails this year solicited volunteers to help run event sessions however I had very few responses.

First Meeting with Students

The purpose of our large group meetings is to have the team members get to know each other, answer any questions they may have, check progress, and to take care of business. We will usually not do anything with any of the problems specifically. It is also a question and answer time. The bulk of the events should be worked on by each groups of two with the mentors.

What we did:

1. Hand out Rules Book.
2. Have team members introduce each other.
3. Have team members review their event rules
4. Have team members arrange times to meet to start working on the events
5. Collect checks- thanks to the few students who remembered to bring them
6. Go over some ground rules (please review these with your child):
2 unexcused absences from the team will result in removal from the team, team members can only be excused without penalty with an email or a note from his/her parent regardless of illness or appointments (this will begin with the next meeting), the student is expected to stay for the whole meeting (especially since we will not be meeting often), and the student is expected to follow the FCPS rules. Please understand that I am volunteering my time and taking time away from work to engage in this activity. I enjoy working with the kids and love to see them expand their science knowledge. It's also a lot of fun to compete and see everyone's solutions to the problems. However, to make this a fun learning environment for everyone, I expect that each student will be respectful of each other, the mentors, and of me. If there is a problem, I will speak with the student. If it continues, I will speak with his or her parents. After that, the student will be asked to leave the team. Finally, please read the emails and check the blog often. Don't rely on your child's synopsis as to what is really happening. Many thanks to many of you who are already doing this diligently. I really appreciate it!

Goals for this week and until we meet again in 3 weeks - Monday, November 17.

1. Each group should already be contacting each other and the mentor to set a time to meet.
2. Each team member should be reviewing the problem in detail.
3. For the academic problem, they should be getting the reading material - online, library, etc. For online, see the links I posted earlier in the blog. They should already be studying the material.
4. I will be ordering t-shirts soon...I need your child's size and the name that he or she would like on the back of the shirt by the next meeting.
5. Each team member should be emailing me with progress reports on a regular basis (hopefully every week but every other week is okay).
6. Please mail me the $45 check payable to "Hughes M.S." You have an email from Shashi with the address.
7. All teams with building events must have a minimum of at least a design or prototype for the next meeting.

Once again, ALWAYS CHECK THE BLOG!

Thanks!

Events Assignment Below

Events assignment below have been revised. Please note that Michael is working on Crave the Wave and Jessica is working on Pentathlon. Also, I incorrectly typed the assignment for Scrambler. It should be Isaac/Patrick not David/Justin.

Events Assignment Revisited and First Meeting

FIRST MEETING WILL BE TOMORROW, Monday, October 20, in the Library. If we finish early, you are welcome to go to other clubs. Unless you are being picked up by a parent, you will take the late bus home. Bring the following to the meeting: a completed afterschool form (if you have not already submitted this earlier for other clubs) and a check for $45 payable to "Langston Hughes M.S." with Science Olympiad in the memo line. You will receive your problem packets at the meeting, you will discuss the problems, meeting times, etc., with your event partner, and be prepared to discuss rules and consequences which will be posted on the blog. Also, come prepared with T-Shirt size so we can order them (see below for the design and links to sizes at Custom Shirt).

The State Director sent competition times for each of the events. Because some team members were assigned to events that were competing at the same time, Shashi and I had to revisit the event assignments. We tried to keep as closely to the previous ones as possible and looked over what each team member stated he/she would like. Again, because of so many variables involved, nobody was assigned to all their first, second and third choices. Also, because of the changes, we may have to change the mentor assignments for each family. Here are the event assignments grouped by competition time block:

Time Block A
Anatomy: Kate/Michael
Compute This: Isaac/Catherine
Disease Det.: Srikar/Ashkan
Science Crime.: Jessica/Zach
Experimental Des.: Aditya/Justin

Time Block B
Dynamic Planet: Kate/Aditya
Environmental Chem.: David/Miyoko
Write It/Do It: Jessica/Patrick
Trajectory (Sign up for A or B - Do B): Ashkan/Zach

Time Block C
Ecology: Catherine/Sharon
Meteorology: Jessica/Aditya
Reach for the Start: Miyoko/Mary Kim
Wright Stuff (Sign up for C or D - Do C): Zach/Srikar
Robo-Cross (Sign up for C or D - Do C): David/Justin

Time Block D
Amphibians & Reptiles: Michael/Sharon
Elevated Bridge: David/Isaac

Time Block E
Fossils: Miyoko/Mary Kim
Pentathlon:Jessica/Justin
Road Scholar: Srikar/Ashkan
Scrambler (Time block E or F, Choose E): Isaac/Patrick

Time Block F
Bio Process Lab: Catherine/Patrick
Crave the Wave:Michael /Sharon
Physical Science Lab: Mary Kim/Kate

Update

Checking the blog is imperative in order to be an informed team member. Make sure you check the blog as often as possible and remind your team mates! The polls have reopened for voting. Remember, we want to hear your opinion so leave comments and vote.

Rules Book

Hello, I have a Rules Book with detailed information for each event. Next Monday, at our first meeting, I will give each team member a book which will have the guidelines for their specific problems. If I can get a good scanner, I will email a copy to each of you as well so that you can have an electronic copy.