Competition Overview

INVITATIONAL/REGIONAL/STATE COMPETITION OVERVIEW:

• Attendance is mandatory unless the Head Coach has been notified 2 weeks in advance (with the exception of acute illnesses). 

• A maximum of 15 students participate on a team
  

• There are 23 events.
  

• 2-3 students participate in each event
  

• Therefore students need to participate in a minimum of 3 events - ideally 2+ academic, 1+ building.
  

• Impound for building events occurs usually between an hour before competition begins on competition day. This means the students enter their building event item in the morning and are not allowed to fiddle with it until it is their turn to compete.
  

• Start time for academic events is usually 8-8:30am - varies depending on location.
  

• There are usually 6 time slots for academic events (3 in the morning, 3 in the afternoon).
  

• There is a break for lunch.
  

• Building events get assigned a slot when the students participating in them are not in their academic events.
  

• There are medals for individual events and a trophy for the top 6 teams.
  

• Rules to obtain the top score for each individual event are available at soinc.org.
  

• The top score in each event earns 1st place.  1st place in an individual event receives 1 point for their school team. 2nd place receives 2 points and so on.
  

• The scores from each event get added up at the end of the day. The team with the LOWEST total score wins and all subsequent schools get ranked accordingly.
  

• If your team does not participate in an event, they "scratch" the event and receive a score of # of teams in competition + 1. Therefore if 30 teams compete in Experimental Design and your team does not participate in that event, your team receives a score of 31 for that event.
  

• Awards are given at the end of the day.
  
  

WHAT TO EXPECT ON COMPETITION DAY:

• Competitions are all-day events.
  

• All students are expected to ride the bus with the team to and from the competitions.
  

• Students usually board the bus by 6:15am and don't return home until nearly 7:00pm. It is a long day.
  

• Students are expected to wear their Chardon Science Olympiad T-shirt.
  

• Food is not provided. Food is usually available for purchase at the host school.
  

• Snacks and water bottles are sometimes permitted - this can be location dependent. **Purchasing lunch and snacks at the host school is important to support future competitions.
  

• Students need to come prepared with all academic event binders, writing utensils, calculators, and other items required for their event.
  

• Building event coaches will transport the building event items