Practice Makes Perfect

I was lucky enough to work with some very talented students and teachers during my tenure as a high school physics teacher. One of the highlights was the time I spent helping out with the school's National Science Bowl team.

Our team tended to do quite well, frequently advancing beyond regional to the national competition, and a large part of that was because of the students' dedication and rigorous practices.^† This included weekly practice rounds and thousands of practice questions. The questions had come from various sources, old competitions, coaches, and students. With so many questions, however, management became a logistical nightmare. After I left teaching, the remaining science team coach asked me about building a web-based system that would allow them not only to store questions, but track participants' performance over time.

The result was: http://www.scibowl.com

To get a feel for it, I suggest running a round.

The site allows users to run rounds and track user performance with a set of preloaded questions or include student-submitted questions. During rounds it will track user performance and avoid giving students questions they submitted. Right now it's only set up for my old school. However, I suppose that if someone else wanted to use it, I could figure out a way to add them to the system for some fee. If you're interested, just email me, and we'll see if it makes sense.

^† Since making use of the Wicked Cool Science Bowel App, Lexington has actually become national champions. It's a testament to their dedication and the hard work of their coach Nicholas Gould. Congratulations!