Starting intramural Quiz Bowl at South Dakota Mines

This forum is for anyone seeking advice on starting a collegiate team, branching out into new types of tournaments, or other "how-to" aspects of collegiate quizbowl.
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Pyrotechnik
Kimahri
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Location: South Dakota Mines (Rapid City, SD)

Starting intramural Quiz Bowl at South Dakota Mines

Post by Pyrotechnik »

Hi everyone.

I've been trying to plan for Quiz Bowl competitions on campus here in Rapid City.
My current focus is on intramural QB because the local area doesn't have Quiz Bowl already, but I'm having difficulty figuring out how we'll get funding for buzzers (which are $200 on the *low* end) and question sets (which are also often in the $100 range).
I personally enjoyed Questions Unlimited over NAQT when I played in the NAC, but I've been hearing criticism toward their style of play (something about badly-written questions, plagiarism, and hooks?)
NAQT is another option, and I've heard better things about them at least. And of course, for both of those styles, we would need to buy buzzer sets.
Is there any cheap, unconventional substitute for a buzzer system? The tournament will be informal, and I'm not planning to stick to specific rules, so the options are endless for cheap, even imperfect substitutes for buzzers. I'm just not sure if that is possible to implement. Rules and regulations for NAQT and QU is beyond me. My high school ran Academic Hallmarks.. which is extremely simple. No buzzers, ping-ponging questions, short questions.

Anyway. I have a lot of questions. Never done this before. No idea how to plan for this.
Any and all help is appreciated!
Shelby Solem (she/her)
SD Mines '23, QB team president
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Solo rischiando tu vivrai. ✸
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cchiego
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Re: Starting intramural Quiz Bowl at South Dakota Mines

Post by cchiego »

Hello and welcome to the forums! Are you from SD? Did you play in one of the Knowledge Bowl leagues there? Would love to know more about the quizbowl scene out there.

Rapid City is fairly isolated, but you actually might have some luck in Wyoming given the very active Wyoming Academic Challenge circuit there, which might have some leads on potential teams at nearby WY Community Colleges since that's where they often host. And I'm sure there are other alumni of local Knowledge Bowl leagues and competitions at the state schools in both North and South Dakota who might be willing to start a team. I know Augustana University used to have a fairly active team, though that is the other end of the state.

You should definitely reach out to NAQT directly, you might be able to host a Early Collegiate Novice event for local schools if you can find interest at other schools (for that, you might try contacting any other local HS Knowledge Bowl alumni that you know went to nearby colleges). An intramural is a good idea though for recruitment purposes as well, so get in touch with them if you can.

NAQT rules and collegiate quizbowl rules in general might look complicated on paper, but they're pretty straightforward when it comes down to gameplay. Take a gander at some of the recorded matches online, though keep in mind most matches outside of national championships aren't timed.

I'd recommend something like using BuzzIn.Live on multiple computers as a good stopgap (and free!) buzzer measure. Do check with your student activities office to see if they might have a buzzer lying around (perhaps from some other competition) and/or see if they'll buy one for you, since that could be used many times in the future.

You may also be interested in competing virtually against other schools from around the country. Check with tournament hosts if you see a tournament that's announced as being held online, though definitely aim for any novice-level events as much as possible if you're just starting out.

Feel free to ask any additional questions and welcome again to the world of collegiate quizbowl.
Chris C.
Past: UGA/UCSD/Penn
Present: Solano County, CA
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Pyrotechnik
Kimahri
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Re: Starting intramural Quiz Bowl at South Dakota Mines

Post by Pyrotechnik »

Thanks for the information! Never heard of BuzzIn, but I'll be sure to check it out. Sounds like a good system that we could use before we get funding.
I do think intramural quiz bowl would be a good starting point, considering that the local area is a bit lacking in Quiz Bowl and all.
Starting off with competition between the departments or student organizations was how I was thinking we'd do it initially, then maybe expand into tournaments with other colleges when/if they decide they'd want to join in.
The Early Collegiate Novice program sounds like a good lead, and I've been leaning toward NAQT more and more, so I'll check that out for sure!

Yes, I'm from South Dakota. I went to school in Canton, and our local area (the Dakota 12) had a Quiz Bowl competition. Pretty much all of the high schools in the area competed, even homeschooled students had a few teams.
We used the Academic Hallmarks format locally (oh no, not the auk!) and we were the top small school in our regional competition (the Siouxper Bowl, NAQT) three times! We played in NAQT's SSNCT for the first year, then swapped over to Questions Unlimited's NAC for the last 2 years. We never did very well on the national level, but it was still a great experience, and the variations familiarized me with 3 different formats. And (unfortunately?) I really did take a liking to Questions Unlimited's format. The 4-quarter system was a nice mix-up from the same-y toss-up/bonus all the time like NAQT. (and I will never forget sweeping the 60-second round on chemistry by myself... that really did feel good.)

A student from Black Hills State University has actually been reaching out to me about Quiz Bowl. If we got the ball rolling with BH, maybe we could join into a greater league from there. It does seem that Wyoming loves the good ol' auk as well, and the options are slim outside of that. In a perfect world, we could change that, but I doubt we could have much sway over a whole region's gameplay. Would be nice though. NAQT is a lot more solid of a system.
Last edited by Pyrotechnik on Thu Sep 16, 2021 2:44 am, edited 3 times in total.
Shelby Solem (she/her)
SD Mines '23, QB team president
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Solo rischiando tu vivrai. ✸
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cchiego
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Re: Starting intramural Quiz Bowl at South Dakota Mines

Post by cchiego »

Great to see that even a few tournaments at the University of Sioux Falls had an impact. There's actually some room too to tinker with quizbowl formats; you could potentially run a 4-quarter style event on NAQT questions (I believe NAQT does produce some lightning rounds each year, though talk to them directly about that). See also some of the old HSAPQ 4-quarter sets if you're interested in seeing a blend of pyramidal questions in a 4-quarter format.

That said, 20/20 (or sometimes 21/21 or 22/22) is the standard format for pretty much all collegiate quizbowl events.

The good news is that I think there's a lot of high schoolers who have experience playing some kind of quizbowl in Western SD. I know there's a league with Black Hills-area high schools that seems pretty active. You could try tracking down and contacting some of the local high school coaches to ask if they have alumni at South Dakota Mines and/or Black Hills State. Eventually, you might even be able to host a small HS event to raise $$.

There have also been quizbowl-style competitions involving some of the nearby Tribal Colleges and Universities as well in the past, so you might contact Oglala Lakota College and inquire about those (I believe they've hosted some before with both local high schools and other Tribal Colleges).
Chris C.
Past: UGA/UCSD/Penn
Present: Solano County, CA
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Halinaxus
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Re: Starting intramural Quiz Bowl at South Dakota Mines

Post by Halinaxus »

cchiego wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 6:02 pm Great to see that even a few tournaments at the University of Sioux Falls had an impact. There's actually some room too to tinker with quizbowl formats; you could potentially run a 4-quarter style event on NAQT questions (I believe NAQT does produce some lightning rounds each year, though talk to them directly about that).
The Minnesota High School Quiz Bowl League uses a modified four-quarter format with lightning rounds from NAQT, and it might be possible to run a collegiate novice tournament with them (NAQT's standard collegiate novice packets are actually just high school questions anyways). Definitely check in with them on that.

I'd also definitely second the use of Buzzin.live. It's seriously awesome (free, effective, and COVID-friendly)!

It's great to see some quiz bowl activity in South Dakota! Good luck!
Reilly Melville
Chaska High School '22
Purdue University '26
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Pyrotechnik
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Re: Starting intramural Quiz Bowl at South Dakota Mines

Post by Pyrotechnik »

Both suggested questions sets look great! I'll definitely give them a look.

I just became aware that ACF Fall exists, and that has me really excited. What a goal to work toward in the coming year!
Especially if Black Hills State University (the REAL BHSU??!?!) starts Quiz Bowl in the next year as well.
Of course, we still need to get events going, which will be a lot of planning in itself, but I'm assuming that will happen at this point :smile:
I am aiming toward getting an NAQT intramural question set, because NAQT does it right and it's cheap! $75 for 15 question sets!

I appreciate the articles on local schools. I didn't know there was any high school quiz bowl here, and I shot e-mails off to some coaches.
Hopefully they get back to me, that would be a nice way to see who has played and who hasn't, and give me a place to send invites!

Also. I just realized how well we're doing, 25 members on any club Discord is pretty crazy.
And we haven't even become a student organization yet.
:party:

We're doing sooo much better than I thought we were.
Shelby Solem (she/her)
SD Mines '23, QB team president
--------------
Solo rischiando tu vivrai. ✸
User avatar
Pyrotechnik
Kimahri
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Joined: Wed Sep 15, 2021 5:44 pm
Location: South Dakota Mines (Rapid City, SD)

Re: Starting intramural Quiz Bowl at South Dakota Mines

Post by Pyrotechnik »

UPDATE:
We're working toward funding from our campus! I messed up the application some so I hope it works out (I'm new to this oops)
We have 50 on the Discord now, though I'd say only 20-30% of people are active. But 10-15 active/ish members is still good! Plenty for a couple teams and planners, and if things go as planned, other organizations will hopefully want to make teams? I'd hope as much at this kind of school. :lol:
Haven't had any competitions as of yet, but we're hoping to get something organized for the semester. Maybe something fun for the fraternities, lol.
Once (if?) we get funding next year, we'll finally get buzzers and be in business!! But for now, online buzzing will have to do.
I'm also hoping to organize something for the local high schools still, haven't been corresponding with the schools much, but I definitely will do so sometime soon! I feel like, if established, it could be one of our main fundraising events.

Sidenote: Doesn't seem like BHSU will be getting a team like I thought. (big sad.) :sad:
Shelby Solem (she/her)
SD Mines '23, QB team president
--------------
Solo rischiando tu vivrai. ✸
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