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So, after a bunch of talk and no action, I'm going to throw this out. People, it seems, want a science tournament. Cardinal Classic seems to be the nearest (in time) logical place to run such a tournament.

To avoid several of the problems that have come up regarding: doing Science Monstrosity is really hard, I've decided that the best way to run it is a maximum of 10 rounds of 15/0 divided as follows:

3/0 biology (max 1 question per round on psychobiology/cognitive neuroscience/similar, this would likely be no more than 3 questions over the whole tournament)
3/0 physics
3/0 chemistry
1/0 additional biology, physics or chemistry
1/0 math
1/0 CS
1/0 Earth Science
1/0 Astronomy
1/0 additional minor science or interdisciplinary science or philosophy/history of science or engineering or other science-related topics

For this to happen, I'd need several co-authors, 'cause there's no way I'm writing 150 science tossups by myself, and if I am you're getting some downright awful questions in a few areas. Therefore I'm looking for any collaborators that would be willing to split writing/editing duties. If I can get 5 co-authors (especially in areas where I suck, like Earth Science and CS), then writing 25 science tossups apiece and collaborative editing over the next 2 months or so should be manageable. More collaborators would allow people to become more specialized, which is always a good thing.

I'm willing to consider any distributional changes, too, if people think a topic is over or underrepresented.

EDIT: What the heck, 3/3/3/1 makes more sense than anything else.

If you are willing to go without science for the rest of the year you may have this.

I will write computer science questions for this. Any other contributions I make to the set will be unsystematic.

That is a lot of biology compared to everything else.

Bentley Like Beckham wrote:That is a lot of biology compared to everything else.

Agreed. Is there some reason for not doing 3 bio, 3 physics, 3 chem, and 1 more bio/chem/physics?

-Seth

setht wrote:

Bentley Like Beckham wrote:That is a lot of biology compared to everything else.

Agreed. Is there some reason for not doing 3 bio, 3 physics, 3 chem, and 1 more bio/chem/physics?

-Seth

As a scientist, I concur.

Also, as me, I'll add that I'll play this if we can get to Cardinal Classic (which is looking good so far.)

MaS

We would love to play IF we're going, but if we're not we'll still help write. In fact, one person at Caltech volunteered to help write and knows he can't come.
Our specialities:
Micah - Bio, organic chem, math?
Matthew - Geo, Astro
Brandon - Physics, math?

So, I'll try to figure out if we're going. What would you like us to write?

Micah

setht wrote:

Bentley Like Beckham wrote:That is a lot of biology compared to everything else.

Agreed. Is there some reason for not doing 3 bio, 3 physics, 3 chem, and 1 more bio/chem/physics?

-Seth

The reason for doing 2 chem instead of 3 is that after looking at the "changing the science distribution?" topic, I think it might be worthwhile to see how a tournament with less chemistry is received. If people think that there should be 3/3/3, then I can just up packet count to 16/0.

There really isn't a good reason for the extra biology question, so I'll change that.

EDIT: Well, 3/3/3/1 makes the most sense, so that's changed.

If this happens, my desire to attend CC will know no bounds.

I don't know if you got my email reply but I can help to write this, especially since I probably wont be attending CC anyways.

I currently have four people, other than myself, plus various Caltech people (let me know who is coming and who will write), that are willing to write in some capacity. The good news is that some of these people are pretty new to question writing, so that's encouraging. The bad news is that some of these people are pretty new to question writing, and I'm not confident in my science-editing ability, so while I can now guarantee that this tournament will happen in some form, I can't guarantee that it will meet the high standards of the people playing in it. I'd like at least one or two more people, including someone with actual science editing experience that I can consistently ask stuff like "Is this clue too early?".

Arnav has indicated to me that, should this tournament happen (and it should), it would take place on Sunday, so we have a place for it.

cvdwightw wrote:I'd like at least one or two more people, including someone with actual science editing experience that I can consistently ask stuff like "Is this clue too early?".

I'd be able to help with this.

Unfortunately, there's no option for "I'm neither interested in writing nor playing, but am entirely willing to read it at the tournament."

Since this would be held on Sunday I don't think anyone at Mizzou would be able to play even if we wanted to.

ulls66 wrote:

cvdwightw wrote:I'd like at least one or two more people, including someone with actual science editing experience that I can consistently ask stuff like "Is this clue too early?".

I'd be able to help with this.

Hey, thanks. I don't have your e-mail address, so I would much appreciate it if you could send me an e-mail indicating in what capacities you'd like to help (writing or just critiquing). EDIT: it might be useful to post my e-mail address. dpwynne at gmail dot com

rylltraka wrote:Unfortunately, there's no option for "I'm neither interested in writing nor playing, but am entirely willing to read it at the tournament."

Unfortunately, I was mostly concerned with whether or not I would get enough co-authors and whether or not there would be interest in playing it, so that poll option never crossed my mind. Thanks for volunteering to staff.