Georgia Tech high school tournament 3/15/08

[gtechnerd]

Georgia Tech will be hosting a high school tournament on the weekend of March 15th. Full details will be listed later, but this is just to get the event on the calendars. We will be using house written questions, aimed at varsity teams.

Note that this date has been changed to avoid conflict with tournaments at UGA and UTC that weekend. Full details should be up by the end of the month, including fees and registration info.

[jrbarry]

Interesting. One of the UGA people told me they were going to sponsor a tournament on that date, the week before our GA State Tournament. mmmmmmmm

[gtechnerd]

See above for the new date.

[First Chairman]

So we won't expect southern schools (outside of Dorman) for the DACQ weekend in DC?

[jrbarry]

Most schools down here do NOT have the funding for their program that Dorman does.

Dorman is to be commended for receiving both school system support as well as business community support for their academic team program. They also give a big tournament which helps raise revenue. That has been going on since the early 1990s.

A weekend trip to DC area is an expensive propostion for my program.

[First Chairman]

Understood... hopefully the GT folks will contact Chris Ray...

[DumbJaques]

A few southern teams beside Dorman gave me an indication of interest, so I'm hoping GTech will be willing to reschedule. Again.

[NoahMinkCHS]

How many is a few? And I'm not sure what you mean by southern, but we've got a big region, so it could be that those teams wouldn't be making the trip to Atlanta anyway, so it wouldn't have an impact on your tournament or theirs. Or that those teams would have reassessed whether making the trip to DC for a pre-nationals tournament made sense, regardless of what else was going on that weekend.

I'm guessing that if it's something like 1-3 teams in either direction, neither Tech nor DACQ will have a problem putting on a quality event.

[vandyhawk]

How many is a few? And I'm not sure what you mean by southern, but we've got a big region, so it could be that those teams wouldn't be making the trip to Atlanta anyway, so it wouldn't have an impact on your tournament or theirs. Or that those teams would have reassessed whether making the trip to DC for a pre-nationals tournament made sense, regardless of what else was going on that weekend.

I'm guessing that if it's something like 1-3 teams in either direction, neither Tech nor DACQ will have a problem putting on a quality event.

I think I agree with Noah here.

[gtechnerd]

The complete details for the tournament are as follows, please e-mail me at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or concerns.

What:
A varsity quizbowl tournament using house written questions of moderate to high difficulty for the circuit (should be roughly the same level as state and NAQT tournaments)

When/Where:
March 15th 2008 at Georgia Tech’s Atlanta campus.

Registration Info:
Please register by e-mailing [email protected] with
-Name of school
-Number of teams (approximate if you can’t commit to an exact number)
-Number of buzzers and/or moderators you plan to bring, if any
-Emergency contact info in case you don’t show up on time on the day of the tournament
Once you have expressed interest, we will add the e-mail address you sent from to our list for updates about the tournament.

Schedule of Fees:
The base fee for this tournament is 65$ but that fee can be brought down to a minimum of 25$ by qualifying for the following discounts
-5$ for each buzzer system brought (max two per team)
-10$ for traveling 150 miles or more
-15$ for traveling 250 miles or more (not cumulative with 150 mile discount)
-20$ for each competent moderator brought (limit of two per team, but let me know if you could bring more)
To qualify for the moderator or buzzer discounts, you MUST let us know how many buzzers and moderators you plan to bring BEFORE March 3rd (this is to give us time to work out any logistical problems). Please note that by competent moderator, we mean someone who has a working knowledge of how a quizbowl tournament operates (this could be a student or a parent, just make sure that person has seen or participated in at least 2 quizbowl events)

Rules:
The tournament will run under modified ACF rules (to see the standard ACF style rules, please visit http://www.acf-quizbowl.com/documents/rules.php ). The only differences from these standard rules will be that
-Bonuses will bounce back, the other team must answer immediately (2 seconds)
-There will be no penalties for incorrect answers
Please notice that in the ACF format players have 5 seconds after buzzing in to give their answer, which is longer than most high school formats. Full rules will be handed out at the tournament.

[gtechnerd]

Here is a quick update on the teams that have registered so far (I have heard from a number of other teams, but these are the only ones that have confirmed a registration).

St. Pius X - 1 or 2 teams
Norcross - 1 team
Grayson - 1 team

There are also a series of contingencies (such as teams that will only go if the tournament have so many teams signed up and so on, adding another 3-4 teams on the expected list). I would urge any and all teams interested in attending to please sign up soon, because we have some space limitations that will require us to cap the field at roughly 20 teams.

Please remember that you must sign up by March 3rd in order to qualify for buzzer or moderator discounts. If you are reasonably confident that you would like to send a team (1 sigma confidence, or 67% likelihood), please register now, and if you need to back out for whatever reason we can work around that.

The question quality should be high given all of the questions I have already seen and edited, I hope a lot of teams will be able to attend!

[Ben_Dodson]

Would a field update be possible soon?

[Gunnells]

Assuming the tournament goes as planned, Norcross will likely bring two teams.

[gtechnerd]

Here is a quick field update (we still have room for more teams, so if anyone is interested in coming, please register as soon as possible).

Grayson 1 team
Norcross 2 teams
St. Pius X 2 teams
North Hall 1 team
Holy Innocents 1 team
Ben Franklin 1 team

A total of eight teams so far from six schools, but there are still some teams who have have expressed interest but haven't registered. The tournament will go forward as planned, probably using a round robin format given the number of teams at the moment.

[jrbarry]

Brookwood would like TWO teams. {Please email me ASAP. [email protected]

[quizbowllee]

I'm trying to get a team together to come on short-notice. I will try to let you know by Monday evening.

Lee Henry
Brindlee Mountain High School

[quizbowllee]

I'm trying to get a team together to come on short-notice. I will try to let you know by Monday evening.

Lee Henry
Brindlee Mountain High School

Never mind... I'm retarded.

[randwise]

What time does the tournament start? What time do we need to be there? In what building?

Thanks, Rand

[randwise]

And, to whom should I make out the check?

Rand

[gtechnerd]

All teams that have registered so far should have received an e-mail by now with the directions information (there was some confusion with parking over which lots would be open, but that is now clarified). For anyone interested, here are the directions from the e-mail.

Getting to campus, follow the directions given here
http://www.visits.gatech.edu/directions/

Once you reach Ferst Drive, continue on it until you reach the all way stop at
State Street. You can then turn into the parking lot there, which is free on
weekends. Hopefully, one our enthusiastic team members will greet you at the
parking lot and direction to the Van Leer building, which is where the
tournament is going to be held.
If for some inexplicable reason you cannot find a cheerful quizperson, then you
should walk in the direction of the nearest stoplight, which is by a giant
construction fence. Turn onto Atlantic drive towards the builds and the big
tall fountain in the distance and walk past the College of Computing building
and the Petit MircoElectronics Research Building (both on your left). The third
building on your left should have a strange looking concrete lattice over all of
the windows, and a brick cylindrical attachment. This is Van Leer. Walk in,
and take a left to go to the main building (not the cylindrical attachment).
The teams will all be meeting in C240 classroom (the first floor you enter is
the second floor).


Checks can be made out to Georgia Tech Academic Team and brought the morning of the tournament.

[Gunnells]

Were you ordered to cancel by the GT administration?

This was the first GT event in awhile, and a last minute cancellation due to rain isn't the way to make a positive impression on teams and coaches.

[Ondes Martenot]

I know I'm a complete outsider to Georgia quiz bowl but I think a tornado hitting Atlanta is a pretty legitimate reason to cancel a tournament.

[Gunnells]

Not really. Atlanta is pretty big and the tornado was fairly minor and pretty much confined to the convention area There's a reason they moved the SEC basketball tourney to GT- it was untouched. If you were to cancel all major events in this area everytime there was a tornado watch or thunderstorm warning, you'd never get anything accomplished. The county where I live has had two tornado warnings in the past hour and half (which means a tornado was either sighted or actually showed up on radar), and everyone pretty much ignores them. It's just a part of life.

This is akin to a building in NYC suffering a non-lethal minor fire and locales three miles away cancelling the following day's events. Norcross is a pretty nearby suburb, and we didn't even consider the tourney would not progress as scheduled. We had two teams show up this morning, and there wasn't even anyone there to explain that it was cancelled. We had to call a contact number and find out.

[Ben_Dodson]

Since the tournament was canceled on such short notice, I'm assuming that you guys still have all the questions and etc that was prepared for the tournament. In that case, would it be possible to simply reschedule the tournament to be held this coming weekend on the 22nd? The field was originally pretty small, so it's not like very many readers or rooms would be needed. Any way this could happen?

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

Don't schools have problems going to events over Easter weekend?

[Ben_Dodson]

Probably most private christian schools, but I'm guessing there are plenty of public schools that have no problem with it. It is after all Easter Sunday and not Easter Weekend.

[Marble-faced Bristle Tyrant]

Our (GT's) spring break is this week, so most, if not all of us are out of town.

fsb

[Ben_Dodson]

Even if it isn't the weekend of the 22nd, there are still weekends during April and etc that the tournament can potentially be rescheduled. Granted, I do not know about any of GT's events or conflicts, but considering the last minute cancellation of this tournament, an attempt to reschedule would undoubtedly be appreciated.

[Marble-faced Bristle Tyrant]

Well, I am not in charge of such things, but I am certain the possibility will be discussed next week. It was a lot of work writing all those question sets, especially with only five of us writing, and I know I would like to see them used after all that effort. And now we time to do a more thorough job of editing.

fsb