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Harvard Fall Tournament (HFT) X Is Available For Mirrors

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 11:24 pm
by UlyssesInvictus
Good news everybody! The 10th annual Harvard Fall Tournament (HFT X) will be available for high school tournament mirrors starting November 14, 2015, and until two weeks before the 2016 HSNCT. I (Raynor Kuang) will be head editor, with contributions from Mark Arildsen, Will Holub-Moorman and the rest of the Harvard team. This is the set that will be produced for the Harvard tournament also on November 14, for which another post will be made.

The Set

As stated, I will be head-editor. Will will have less of a contributing effort than previous years, but as always we want to maintain difficulty-appropriate and high quality questions. This set is targeted at the core high school "canon," but I personally have a desire to see questions used which accurately reward knowledge learned in the classroom and with "real world" significance. Answerline difficulty will vary, with most being comparable to a NAQT Invitational Series set, but some may be easier, and some (i.e. fewer rather than more) will be HSNCT difficulty. As with previous years, there will be 15 power-marked rounds, with the last two rounds being finals packets of slightly higher difficulty. The vast majority (95%) of questions will be 5-6 lines Times New Roman 10 point font. The distribution is as follows:

4/4 Literature (1/1 American, 1/1 European, 1/1 British, 1/1 World/Ancient/Misc)
4/4 Science (1/1 Biology, 1/1 Chemistry, 1/1 Physics, 1/1 Math/CS/Earth Science/Astro/Other)
4/4 History (1/1 American, 1/1 World, 2/2 European/British/Ancient)
3/3 Fine Arts (1/1 Painting/Sculpture, 1/1 Classical Music, 1/1 Other Arts)
1/1 Social Science / Philosophy
1/1 Religion
1/1 Mythology
1/1 Geography/Modern World
1/1 Popular Culture

Notes:
-A tiebreaker tossup and bonus will be provided for each round coming from one of the "Big Three" categories (literature, history, or science), in addition to some emergency backup questions.
-Some subdistributions will not be precise, to allow for heightened presence of more "important"/high school appropriate answers (e.g. math) and decreased presence of traditionally difficult high school topics (e.g. world literature or social science).
-This year a popular culture (i.e. "Trash") category has been added. This category will be focused primarily on film, television, sports, and music, and an effort will be made to provide answerlines that have a strong presence in the US popular conscience, or even academic importance.

Fee and Mirrors

The fee is $15 per non-host team present at your mirror site. This fee is negotiable to lower amounts for special events, such as solo sites, sites with low team attendance (< 8 teams), or sites with significant team attendance (>40 teams). This negotiability is completely at my discretion and is in no way set in stone.

If would you like to mirror this set, please contact me at raynorkuang AT college DOT harvard DOT edu. If I don't respond in a convenient time, definitely email me again. A running list of mirrors and desired geographic sites will be maintained in the post below. When the mirror period is over, I will personally upload the set immediately. If there are conflicting regional requests, consideration will be made for attendance size, quality/consistency of program (i.e. I'd prefer not to have the mirror evaporate the day before), and first-come first-serve.

Other Comments

I'm personally very excited to be editing this set, and hope you're excited to mirror/play it! As this set is entering the 10th year :party: of the HFT tradition, I have big hopes for the set. If you have any questions or comments at all about mirroring the set, such as fee, logistics, content, and/or what you are/are not allowed to do with the set, please contact me, and I will endeavor to be as helpful as possible (questions about playing it should probably go in the main site thread, which will be posted as soon as we get some more logistical details sorted). Looking forward to hearing from you!

Re: Harvard Fall Tournament (HFT) X Is Available For Mirrors

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 11:24 pm
by UlyssesInvictus
List
--------
New England: Harvard main site (11/14/15)
SoCal: UCSD (4/16/16)
Southeast: Marist School (1/23/16)
Midwest (Ohio): Solon High School (2/6/16)
Midwest (Illinois): Rockford Auburn (12/5/15)
Mid-Atlantic: Richard Montgomery (4/9/16)
UK: Oxford (5/14/16)

Re: Harvard Fall Tournament (HFT) X Is Available For Mirrors

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2015 7:47 pm
by UlyssesInvictus
Capistrano Valley High School is mirroring HFT X in the SoCal region! (Sometime around January). The set is proceeding along nicely, so get those mirror requests in!

As always, definitely send me an email or private message if you have any questions at all about mirroring.

Re: Harvard Fall Tournament (HFT) X Is Available For Mirrors

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2015 12:01 am
by UlyssesInvictus
Since I've last posted, we've picked up mirrors at Solon and Marist. In addition, I've officially announced the main site at Harvard (for which teams are already signing up!). I'm very excited about some of the stuff we're writing, so get those mirror requests in!

Re: Harvard Fall Tournament (HFT) X Is Available For Mirrors

Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2015 7:19 pm
by UlyssesInvictus
Another update: we now have mirrors in the Mid-Atlantic (RMHS) and Canada (Toronto U). We're still looking for mirrors in the South, NorCal, and another Midwest site. If you're interested, please contact me!

Re: Harvard Fall Tournament (HFT) X Is Available For Mirrors

Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2015 4:23 am
by Fado Alexandrino
Canada (Toronto U).
I am sure Raynor et al will have a good set, but...

Is HFT really the best set to be used in a city's first tournament since 2010? Literally one school in Toronto, and only a handful in the GTHA (even if you include Waterloo CI) has any student with non-nhbb quizbowl experience.

SCOP and 3 A-sets would be plenty in the fall for Southern Ontario to divide up for now.

Re: Harvard Fall Tournament (HFT) X Is Available For Mirrors

Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2015 9:42 am
by Calculus?
The Last 21 Stanley Cup Winners wrote:
Canada (Toronto U).
I am sure Raynor et al will have a good set, but...

Is HFT really the best set to be used in a city's first tournament since 2010? Literally one school in Toronto, and only a handful in the GTHA (even if you include Waterloo CI) has any student with non-nhbb quizbowl experience.

SCOP and 3 A-sets would be plenty in the fall for Southern Ontario to divide up for now.
I was not given any information on a) which teams would possibly be attending and b) what kind of tournament they would like, because the ONQBA doesn't have that info at the moment. So I chose something regular-ish difficulty that I thought would be a high quality set. If attendance ends up being too low to run the tournament, which I hope is not the case, I'll see if an easier set would do better. Quizbowl in Toronto is really just a lot of trial-and-error at this point.

Re: Harvard Fall Tournament (HFT) X Is Available For Mirrors

Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2015 11:01 pm
by UlyssesInvictus
The set's close to done, so I'll be playtesting some various finicky questions (mainly lit, history, arts; some science, RMP) this Thursday at 7:30 PM EST on IRC in channel [just kidding, see edit] and server slashnet. Use your real name for your nick; you'll be expected to identify yourself regardless. I recommend Mibbit if you've never used IRC before.

Oh, and obviously this is closed to any current high school players, whether or not you plan to play the set.

EDIT: After getting good advice, the channel name is now private (i.e. not still #hftx). Email me or PM me if you'd like to playtest, and I'll give you the channel name directly.

Re: Harvard Fall Tournament (HFT) X Is Available For Mirrors

Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2015 11:52 am
by UlyssesInvictus
Bump on this, since only one person has messaged me all week.

Also, I forgot to mention, but we now have a mirror site at Rockford Auburn in Illinois as well!

Re: Harvard Fall Tournament (HFT) X Is Available For Mirrors

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2015 7:43 pm
by UlyssesInvictus
The set is done, and we're doing final playtesting and packetizing.

We're still looking for multiple mirrors in the South, NorCal, and the Pacific NW. Hit me up if you're interested!

Re: Harvard Fall Tournament (HFT) X Is Available For Mirrors

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2015 9:06 pm
by UlyssesInvictus
Final playtesting in #hftstupidsexybrady. It's a little abrupt, but join if you want to hear trash.

Re: Harvard Fall Tournament (HFT) X Is Available For Mirrors

Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2016 11:20 pm
by UlyssesInvictus
The Harvard, Solon, Auburn, and Marist sites have all occurred to fantastic reviews. (The phrase "favorite set" has been used :D).

The Capistrano mirror has been replaced by a UCSD mirror on 4/2.

The set is gaining steam as a fantastic pre-Nationals preparation set, so if you'd like to mirror it, please let me know as soon as possible.

Re: Harvard Fall Tournament (HFT) X Is Available For Mirrors

Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 12:23 am
by swaymun.shahee
Is the Richard Montgomery mirror still happening on April 2nd? If so, TJHST is already holding a tournament that day and that might hurt each tournament's respective fields.

Re: Harvard Fall Tournament (HFT) X Is Available For Mirrors

Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 2:01 am
by UlyssesInvictus
swaymun.shahee wrote:Is the Richard Montgomery mirror still happening on April 2nd? If so, TJHST is already holding a tournament that day and that might hurt each tournament's respective fields.
This one's my bad, I got the date wrong. Double checked my emails and it's the 9th.

Re: Harvard Fall Tournament (HFT) X Is Available For Mirrors

Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2016 6:42 pm
by UlyssesInvictus
Updated the UCSD mirror date to 4/16 and added an Oxford mirror, which as of now is the last planned mirror and will occur exactly 2 weeks before HSNCT.

I'd again like to encourage people to use HFT X as preparation for the national tournaments! The Harvard team is especially amenable to negotiated discounts for singles, doubles, and invitational events.

Re: Harvard Fall Tournament (HFT) X Is Available For Mirrors

Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 10:48 pm
by UlyssesInvictus
Only remaining mirror is the Oxford mirror; UCSD and RM events had great reviews!
A reminder that we'll offer special discounts for singles and other special events! (including mirrors of any size you'd still like to arrange).
We're going to move the set release date back by a week as well to give people another week to arrange events.

Re: Harvard Fall Tournament (HFT) X Is Available For Mirrors

Posted: Sat May 21, 2016 10:21 am
by Bosa of York
Will this set be posted? Are any future mirrors planned?

Re: Harvard Fall Tournament (HFT) X Is Available For Mirrors

Posted: Sat May 21, 2016 11:39 am
by UlyssesInvictus
Xochicuicatl Cuecuechtli wrote:Will this set be posted? Are any future mirrors planned?
No future mirrors, and set has been emailed to Jeff for upload to the archive.

Thank you to everybody who mirrored or played the set this year, and good luck at nationals! I hope this year's iteration of HFT X has successfully addressed concerns from previous years.

I'll be making the discussion forums public soon as well, so please visit those if you'd like to discuss the set. (Or just comment here, alternatively.)

Re: Harvard Fall Tournament (HFT) X Is Available For Mirrors

Posted: Sat May 21, 2016 11:53 am
by Bosa of York
Thanks!

Re: Harvard Fall Tournament (HFT) X Is Available For Mirrors

Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2016 3:10 pm
by UlyssesInvictus
Should also note that the discussion group has been completely public for a while now. I really do appreciate feedback, especially as we begin writing HFT XI, so please send your feedback! (In general, things like "I thought your style of writing American history didn't properly reward social knowledge" is better than "you had 3.45 typos in Round 2.")