The Quizbowl Resource Center

The OSU Academic Team will host a mirror of THUNDER, a tournament written by Trygve Meade, George Stevens, and Eric Mukherjee, on Saturday October 24, 2009 on Ohio State's Columbus campus. Packet submission is not necessary.

Fees:
Base fee per team: $120
Functional Buzzer: -$10
Distance: -$10 per 200 miles traveled

This is the first collegiate tournament the OSUAT has hosted, so I hope programs in Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, W. Pennsylvania and Ohio will support our efforts to become a regular stop on the college circuit. We hosted 3 HS tournaments last year, which all went swimmingly, so we do in fact know how to run tournaments. Space at this tournament will be somewhat limited, so please register ASAP by posting here or emailing [email protected]

Nice to see a tournament within a 2 hours drive. If I can get my driver to go then we'll probably show up with a team.

I would like to be a free agent if open teams are allowed.

Michigan will probably bring 2-3 teams.
We're very glad that you are hosting.

CMU will almost certainly bring a team, with an outside shot at a second.

What a lovely response. This is so much better than answering such high school coach queries as "how many players per team?" and "exactly what time will the tournament finish? We need to be home by 3:30."

Programs that have expressed interest:

Louisville
Centre
CMU 1-2
Michigan 2-3
Case
Youngstown State 1-2

Youngstown State will bring 1 team, with a chance of a second.

We are working on funding, but we may also bring a second team.
Matt Church
University of Louisville

Updates:

This is a football game Saturday, which means that if you plan on grabbing a hotel room the night before, you should look into that ASAP. Additionally, traffic will be heavier. We held a 24 team tournament on the day of OSU's spring game, where 85k people paid good money to watch a glorified scrimmage in Ohio Stadium. Considering that we had absolutely zero problems stemming from the presence of those folks on campus, we should be fine on the 24th of October, even with slightly larger attendance. It is just something of which you should be aware.

Also, the entire tournament will be held entirely within Mendenhall Laboratory. Be there by 8:45. If you are running late, let me know.

Numbers permitting, the OSUAT will field a house team.

More Updates:

It turns out that we've been provided a free trash set, and it would be a shame to waste it.
The set is 11 tossup-only rounds, 20 tossups each.
So this is a mini-announcement of sorts: We'd be willing to host a mini-trash event for any and all interested parties. Given the size of the field, this will probably end up being a singles or doubles tournament.
Anyway, if you're interested, shoot me an e-mail at sankaran[dot]4[at]buckeyemail[dot]osu[dot]edu.

Again, this post is intended to gauge interest: I haven't decided whether to do this is a side event immediately after THUNDER or on Sunday. If you're interested, get back to me asap, as I need to go about reserving rooms and such.
Thanks,
Kirun

What is the trash set?

I'm sure several guys from Case wouldn't mind sticking around to play the trash set.

Jeff Geringer at UIUC randomly wrote a trash set. I've only seen a handful of the questions, but those few that I've seen have been quite impressive, and as Jeff has graciously provided said set to us for free, we see no point in not using it.

There is a good chance that some CMU people will stick around for trash if it happens Saturday, but since we are likely day-tripping, Sunday wouldn't work for us.

Also, we are officially bringing two teams.

I believe we can stay to play in either case.

I would prefer to play it Saturday evening, but should be able to make it in either case.

Hey everyone, I just wanted to make a quick post about my trash set.

-This set is 11 rounds of 21 questions, tossups only.
-It is meant to be played solo or as a doubles team, mostly because the question difficulty is on the low end and (our aim is that) almost every answer in the set is recognizable by almost all of the players.
-This set is being played at a high school location on 10/17. Question discussion will be put on hold until 10/25 accordingly.
-This set is written entirely by myself and Dan Donohue (Saint Viator, '10).
-This set has power marks, answers before them are worth 15.
-This tournament is meant to appeal to a younger audience that the other sets I've seen/played. The majority of questions are set within the last 15 years, and the high video game component is meant to reflect the growth of that industry. If you're expecting questions about the obscure second album from a one-hit wonder band from the 70's, this isn't your tournament.
-Distribution (as best as I remember off the top of my head) is as such:
6 Movies and TV
4 Music
3 Video Games
3 Sports
4 Miscellaneous, which includes Trash Lit, Mutli-Category Trash, Consumerism, Technology, and other things I find relevant that don't quite fit into a category.

Otherwise, thank you Ohio State for taking this on.

So as far as I can tell, there are Case, CMU and YSU people interested, which means we'll do a singles tournament immediately after the main event gets wrapped up. That way, I don't have to worry about reserving rooms Sunday and stuff. So if people would be so kind as to either e-mail me or reply to this posting exactly who is interested, I'll be sure to go about drawing up a bracket.

I will likely be coming to play with the Centre team, and may play the trash packets, depending on what time the main tournament finishes up.

Apparently, the board couldn't send my private messages to various members of the teams playing this tournament, but due to the people that I was going to play with backing out, I'm still a free agent. At this difficulty level, I think I can get some questions in physics/astronomy/math/religion/geography/wacky niche areas of history/trash.

EDIT: If some team picks me up, I will also play the trash tournament.

There will probably be some Michigan people who will want to play this TRASH set as well, although we will not really know who until Wednesday evening after practice.

All this interest has been quite encouraging. If y'all could get me definite "yes" answers as soon as possible, I'll go ahead and draw up brackets and whatnot. E-mail me at my personal e-mail (in my signature).

Could you add U of L to the TRASH list, our team would like to play the TRASH set. All the best.
Matt Church
University of Louisville

We will certainly have at least 3 teams, and possibly a fourth. I'm waiting to hear back from one guy who wasn't at practice today. We have at least 6 people playing trash, and probably a few more. I'll let you know as soon as I hear back from people.

3 teams.

Where exactly are we going to be congragating in the morning?

Yeah Jacob or Kirun,
I definitely need some directions, an address, something to get there, and where I can park - times, etc. I'm driving down in the morning and want to make sure I have ample time.

BobGHHS wrote:where I can park

Yeah, suggestions on parking that is both close and cheap would be appreciated. I know parking is gonna be a bitch with it being a game day and all.

We will be meeting in Mendenhall Lab 100.
http://www.osu.edu/map/building.php?building=054
There's a link to a google map, as well as a map at the bottom of the page.
Parking is in the Ohio Union garage, which is just east of Mendenhall (It's on the map). It should cost you $10 for the day, as it's a home football Saturday. Mendenhall 100 is a lecture hall located just inside the north entrance of the building (the oval side).
Jacob's phone number is 513-293-9043 and mine is 205-910-7729. Call us if you have any trouble. Also, our post-THUNDER trashtastrophe mirror will be in the same building, and registration for that event will take place at the same time (roughly) as registration for THUNDER.
Thanks, and don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

CMU is only bringing one team. It is not yet decided whether we will stay for trash.

Congrats to CMU, who won THUNDER Columbus by going undefeated. Stats are up here:

http://results.scobo.net/SQBS.aspx?org= ... =standings

TRASHTASTROPHE stats are also up:

http://results.scobo.net/SQBS.aspx?org= ... =standings

I just wanted to say thanks for OSU for hosting this, I had a really good time coming up to play, and Geoff did too. I hope that you host more events in the future, because I'll be sure to attend (maybe even with a full team from my school).

I had a good time playing with Joe, Geoffrey, and Bob, and felt that the other teams thought that the tournament was pretty well-run. Many of the teams were amazed that this tournament started at its announced time, and that ten rounds with tossups of this length could be done by 4:30. It was good to meet a bunch of people for the first time, whether they post on this board or not.