Hello, Coaches:
A couple of more updates:
Unified schedule
This latest draft (link) is now available for coach comments. Please email back if you have any feedback. We will continue two WA unique events which are a better match to our high school student’s zone of development while creating a fair, less error-prone testing experience for all participants.
- The Sustainable Energy (B/C) event is designed to prepare students for the challenge of climate change, with a focus on energy storage from intermittent renewable energy sources. Detailed rules will be shared later.
- Quantum Quandary (C) event is updated to make the rule scope more accessible to Div-C students who are passionate about physics and the latest technology trends. Link to the rule is in the footnote of the schedule.
The draft schedule also includes a few trial events that we plan to run at Invitational and State competitions to spur interest and collaboration. In particular, Game Agent introduces Reinforcement Machine Learning to Middle school students. This trial event is similar to Game On but requires an “AI” agent element of student’s choice.
Team volunteering
Thank you to all the coaches who have already filled out the survey! One key change this year is that volunteers from teams are required to run regional events. We encourage the head coach to reach out to all the student parents when you set up the teams. As I mentioned earlier, the board’s goal is to recruit new volunteers who can help WSO grow. Parents volunteering should help build student support and a sustainable community. The policy is not intended to discourage teams from signing up due to lack of volunteers.
Workshop
We have a local workshop advertised to coaches earlier, link attached below. Nationally, there are quite a few online workshops available including a season kickoff webinar, which you can find on https://www.soinc.org/join/workshops
The state website is updated https://washingtonscienceolympiad.com/coaches.html, but we will go through a web host migration next month.
Meanwhile, you can find registration and tournament details on https://Scilympiad.com/wa
From my last email:
Team/volunteer survey: https://forms.gle/zyHpLVMDXCkvK3Zd7
Volunteer (individual) survey: https://forms.gle/cv3wvrMFB4FcXYfJ6
Coach workshop registration: https://forms.gle/hZe4TbyurUssnc9G7