CYBER set (MS or Novice HS) for 2023-24

[osbornrj]

I'm proud to announce the debut of the Sentinel CYBER (Competitive Youths Battling Educated Rivals).

Set Name
Sentinel CYBER #1A

Difficulty
Middle School / Novice High School

Fee
$14 for each team that competes (including house teams). Hosts must agree to not alter any questions or release any information about this set outside of their tournament until August 31, 2024. The set will be discounted to $12/team for hosts who agree to publicly post their stats.

Length
12 packets consisting of 24 tossups paired with three-part bonuses. The last four tossups and bonuses are marked as replacements.

Format
Tossups are pyramidal, power-marked, and generally 4-5 lines long (<500 characters). Bonus sets have lead-ins, and each of the three parts is typically 1-2 lines long.

Availability
All 12 packets are available to mirror now through Aug. 31, 2024.

Distribution (Tossups/Bonuses)
4/4 History (1/1 American, 1/1 British, 1/1 European, and 1/1 World)
4/4 Science (1/1 Biology, 1/1 Chemistry, 1/1 Physics, and 1/1 Other - no computational math)
4/4 Literature (1/1 American, 1/1 British, 1/1 European, and 1/1 World or Classical)
2/2 Fine Arts (1/1 Visual and 1/1 Music)
2/2 Geography (1/1 American and 1/1 World)
1/1 Religion
1/1 Mythology
0.5/0.5 Social Science
0.5/0.5 Sports
0.5/0.5 Pop Culture
0.5/0.5 Current Events

Head Editor
Tate Osborne

Assistant Editors
Robin Osborne and Leo Osborne

Writing Staff
The Sentinel CYBER is written by Scholars' Bowl players at the Alabama School of Cyber Technology and Engineering (ASCTE). I'm also assisting with the set.

Writers
Tate Osborne
Leo Osborne
Robin Osborne
Elizabeth Orton
Eugene Park
Amie Conrey

Contact
E-mail me at [email protected] if you have questions or would like to reserve this set.

The first tournament to use this set was the Sentinel Invitational Tournament, held at ASCTE in Huntsville, AL on Oct. 14, 2023. This tournament had both MS and Elem divisions. Stats can be found here: https://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/8296/

Mirror Sites

• 10/28/23: Titan Takedown (in-person) at Northview High School in Johns Creek, GA, hosted by Vivek Vishwanath viewtopic.php?t=27345

• 11/18/23: Cave Spring Invitational XVIII (in person) at Cave Spring High School in Roanoke, VA, hosted by Tamara Carson
  https://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/8575/

• 12/02/23: Sandy Fall Novice Charity Tournament (online), hosted by Saurish Arora of the Eastern Seaboard Academic Competition Alliance
  viewtopic.php?t=27397

• 1/04/24 - 3/1/24: Green Meadows Conference (in person) in Northwest Ohio, reserved by Sally Kovar

• 1/06/24: Interlake Invitational Quizbowl Tournament (online), reserved by Matt Daniels
  viewtopic.php?t=27514

• 1/20/24: Kaneland High School Academic Challenge for JV and Varsity (in person), in Maple Park, IL, hosted by Brock Feece

• 1/27/24: Quaker Bowl (in person) run by the Early College at Guilford on the campus of Guilford College in Greensboro, NC, hosted by John Haynes

• 1/30/24: Peoria Area League JV tournament (in person) at Brimfield High School in Illinois, hosted by Aaron Barrington

• 4/6/24: Weaubleau Middle School Invitational (in person) in Missouri, hosted by Brandon Delmont
  viewtopic.php?t=27729

• 4/6/24: Big Cat VII for 6-8 grade (in person) at Columbia Independent School in Missouri, hosted by Lisa McClary

• 4/20/24: Putnam County Middle School Challenge (in person) in Cookeville, TN, hosted by Sam Matson

• 4/27/24: Darien Spring Academic Competition (in person) at Middlesex Middle School at Columbia Independent School in Darien, CT hosted by Ken Romeo
  viewtopic.php?p=399193&hilit=Cyber#p399193

[Ocean=Soup]

I'm just wondering, does the label of #1A imply that there will be more iterations later down the line?

[eygotem]

Will there be any Philosophy questions, e.g. under Literature? Also, I would recommend using some of the replacement questions to form a 13th packet, to make scheduling easier for hosts.

[osbornrj]

I'm just wondering, does the label of #1A imply that there will be more iterations later down the line?

There's a good chance there will be a #2A next year. The "A" is just our way of denoting the difficulty level is MS/Novice HS. We might decide at some point to put out a CYBER HS regs set. The "A" will distinguish which is which.

Robin

[osbornrj]

Will there be any Philosophy questions, e.g. under Literature? Also, I would recommend using some of the replacement questions to form a 13th packet, to make scheduling easier for hosts.

Any philosophy questions in our set fall under the 0.5/0.5 Social Science, but as I'm sure you know, social science includes other areas as well.

Robin

[Sima Guang Hater]

Will this set be playtested and/or looked over by editors experienced with writing MS questions? Writing at this level is a tricky business - I would at the very least suggest playtesting before it's played. Conor Thompson and Jacob O'Rourke are two people who have a lot of experience writing at this level and would probably be helpful.

[osbornrj]

Will this set be playtested and/or looked over by editors experienced with writing MS questions? Writing at this level is a tricky business - I would at the very least suggest playtesting before it's played. Conor Thompson and Jacob O'Rourke are two people who have a lot of experience writing at this level and would probably be helpful.

Hi Eric,

The set will be playtested and then used at our own MS tournament a week prior to the release date for mirrors. We're all very good writers with a lot of exposure to the MS/JV canon. I'm confident it's a solid set.

Best regards,
Robin

[osbornrj]

I'm extremely happy to report that the first tournament that used this set, which was our school's Sentinel Invitational Tournament, ran very smoothly with the CYBER set and there were no major issues. There were a few minor typos and prompts we're correcting. I'm sure that's perfectly normal for the first full run of a house-write. The questions were very well received in the MS division. They were quite challenging for the ELEM division but that came as no surprise to anyone since the advertised level of difficulty is MS/JV.

Stats from the recent 2023 Sentinel Invitational are posted here:
https://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/8 ... standings/

Compare those stats to the 2022 Sentinel Invitational that used the first NAQT IS-A set of the 2022-23 season:
https://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/7 ... standings/

The highest team averages were higher for CYBER vs. the IS-A set, and the PPG/Team averaged over all the teams (with Elem-level teams included in both tournaments) in the Round Report is a bit higher than last year. It's true that different sets of teams played at the two tournaments, but I think their skill levels are comparable. The point is, I think we did a pretty good job hitting the level of difficulty we were targeting. :-)

Best regards,
Robin