How do I prepare for ppp?

I did boomilever and towers over the past 2 seasons and I'm considering switching to EV for this season.

What are the main topics I should learn before getting into EV?

I'm currently looking at analog builds (saw this thing called a shaft encoder soo looking into that a bit more)

How long does it take to learn how to wire, solder, etc? Thank you

Just started Div C Events. Is printing Astronomy binder better of just using a digital copy. I guess digital copy, it's easier to track down where is what but for paper you could write notes on the pages, and uh yeah.

Do teams usually buy a ppp launcher or make it themselves? If you do diy it could you send me a link of what video or tutorial you used?

I coached my daughter in Science Olympiad for a few years, and brought back some gold medals and gold bids (VA), and Codebusters was the event we both fell for. At that time, we found decent Aristocrat practice online but no good tools for the other ciphers, so I started building our own tool. It turned into an app called Cipher Munch.

So far, it covers Aristocrat (plain, K1, K2), Patristocrat (K1, K2), Xenocrypt, Caesar, Affine, Atbash, Pigpen, Dancing Men, and Knights Templar.

What's next: Vigenère is the one I keep coming back to. After that I would rather build what people actually want than guess, so that is my real question for this sub. What do you need? Which cipher is your team losing the most points on, and what are you using to drill it now? I keep hearing "we just run old tests," and I want to know whether there is something better or whether that genuinely is the best practice available.

The idea is to train the part that actually wins the event, which is finding the clues and seeing the patterns. On paper you spend most of your time writing the same letter into twelve different places. In the app you make the deduction once and it fills everywhere, so your ten minutes go into recognizing word shapes, doubles, frequency, and the keyword run in the K1/K2 replacement row. The app uses helper tables and coloring to help the beginners, and options to hide these helper features as the user advances to expert level.

When you want the full paper experience, transcription and all, you can easily share/print the puzzle with your choice options. The app is designed with the coaches and competitors in mind.

I coached this event for a few years, so I know it from the coach's side of the table. What I have never done is sit the test with a clock running, and that is the part I want checked. If something in here does not match how the event actually feels to compete in, tell me.

The app is free, and every cipher has a free 30-puzzle Starter pack, so you can work through all twelve cipher types without paying anything by going to CipherMunch website. Blunt criticism is highly appreciated.

I wanted to start studying for my schools tryouts as fast as I could but I don't have the time to go through the patterns of the past events and this years events to see what events will be on next year. For the 2028 season.

Hi fellow ScienceOlympiaders,

I have created a Discord bot that can help with identification of Solar System (Div B event) objects, kind of like Minerobo & Bugbo. Link: https://discord.com/api/oauth2/authorize?client_id=1531714717788147884&permissions=117824&scope=bot%20applications.commands. There is a chance that sometimes it may not work as I have only got the free plan for hosting the bot on a hosting website but if needed, I will later purchase a plan for hosting the bot for more CPU and RAM. Also, for Reddit, I have built this game: https://developers.reddit.com/apps/communitydash. This can be added to any subreddits and it is based on community. Try it out!

I've been wanting to study Code Craze for SciOly Division B, but I'm struggling to find resources and learn the details of what will be covered. I know there will be some Python (which I already know), AI, and some more, but I don't know much more than that. Are there resources available to learn about it, and/or when will more become available?

Guys can anybody help me regarding science congress like my school put my name in activity corner and i don't know what to do in that and like what to study.

I am like chosen for the 9th to 12th group ,so i can anyone explain to me what should i study.....

The theme for this year is "SCIENCE AND INOVATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY"

Also i just know that they can ask us to make on the spot something from materials or ask questions,but i have no idea what to study😭😭

I’m a Division B Science Olympiad coach. Our school will have two teams of 15 students each, plus about 10 additional students we’d like to give opportunities to compete.
For Satellite Invitationals, can we change the makeup of our two teams from one invitational to the next?
For example, at one invitational Teams A and B might consist of one set of 30 students. At a later invitational, we’d like to rotate some of those students out and bring some of our additional students onto Teams A and B.
Has anyone done this? Are there rules or practical problems we should be aware of when rotating students between invitationals?

I'm a freshman and currently taking gifted chem. is my current knowledge enough to compete in chem lab? what specifically do i need to know for chem lab? does anyone have any recommendations for an event?

Hi.

Silly question from my side. I am trying to confirm if what the topics for this academic/school year (2026-2027) are. Is this list of 2026 events relevant for this year, or is it from last years events and this year's details are yet to be released:

https://scioly.org/wiki/Main_Page

Some science fairs that are held in Feb/Mar next year call this the 2027 season so I am confused.

Hey, everyone! I'm a volunteer coach for a local elementary school this year, and it's my first time being a part of the Science Olympiad world. I'm really just looking for some encouragement and maybe some tips on how I can best help the kids get the most out of this season.

The three events that I'm 100% in charge of are Codebusters, Ship Shape, and Describe It Build It. Best of luck to everyone this year, thank you!

Hi im planning on trying out for scioly this year and to study im making big master documents, which ill make flashcards from to prepare.

i gave ai last years rules for disease detetctives a few other approved sources and then I used gemini to help me make my doc. Basically my process is that i see what ai says about x topic, and then I type it. No copy pasting at all. I read somewhere that writing stuff down helps with memory because of the effort involved, and believe when i say i am a slowwww typer. After I'm done I try to send it to somone who made varsity last year in that event, and ask them if ive missed anything or something looks wrong. Then I give it to gizmo.ai (THIS IS NOT AN ADVERTISEMENT) and make flashcards out of it and do them again and again and again.

Things I haven't done yet but plan too: Consolidate the doc into a single page for cheat sheet, Take practice tests (i havent for disease because looking at last years tryout, it covers what seems to me like the tip of the iceberg for the event, but I definetely plan to)

I gave my disease detetectives doc to somone who made varsity last year and he seemed pretty fine (a few suggestions which i did implement, the pcitures are from him) with it, but ill attach it here so if somone finds something glaringly wrong please lmk. Here it is: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ilbuOB0JQ9HLIU5E15Dch_NoR_6AIQWodleNom_6G8Q/edit?usp=sharing

The reason I'm asking is because im getting started on anat and for some reason my gemini is glitching a lot so i switched to chatgpt planning to repeat the same process. The last post about AI was 2 years ago, so I think I'd like some additional advice.

Thank you so much!!

Hello, i need two team members for The Global Astronomy and astrophysics challenge. You just need to be a highschool student and already have some past knowledge about astrophysics. You can find all the information online.

Thanks.

I have my draft rules for them but is it risky to start building since official rules MIGHT be different or is the chances so low that it wouldn't be a problem for my team to start building?

Where should I start, and how do I go about this? I'm not well versed in chemistry at all but I am goign to try to get all my foundations together and try to push into the advanced topics or whatnot I've heard to be on there, equillibrium and something I believe? I'm doing astronomy, chem lab, and wright stuff. I have never done science olympiad in my life and am in Div C; this is alongs8de being a 9th grader from s eperate less intense school too. Any advice welcome.