We have added a special page to this site with the information you need if you are participating in the State Meet on February 28. Congratulations to teams who qualified!
Visit the State 2015 Page.
Category: For Parents
P.A.R.T.Y. in a Box Time: Theater Etiquette
When I was a kid competing in USAT, my favorite event was always the P.A.R.T.Y. performance. I loved getting up in front of the crowd of parents and other teams to share our interpretation of the PA.R.T.Y. in a Box problem. I went on to do two professional plays as well as many school and community performances over the years and I know that I achieved some of the confidence I needed to even try out based on my time in USAT. In addition to my own acting chops, I have also been a judge for USAT performances several times and I plan to share some tips to help students do their very best at each competition. Over the next several weeks I will be giving advice about creating costumes, backdrops and props, and making performances memorable.
But, let’s start with the basics. Getting up in front of a big group can be incredibly intimidating even if you have done it lots of times. The best way to help everyone feel comfortable and give it their all is to have a respectful audience. Many of the participants in USAT have never been to a formal performance of a play, orchestra or other event that would demand proper theater etiquette so they probably don’t even know the right way to act unless parents, coaches or facilitators tell them (and show them) how it is done.
1. Turn off all electronic devices. Smart phones, MP3 players, tablets and all manner of electronics have become the norm, but they have no place in a theater setting. Not only are the noises the devices themselves make distracting, but how many times have you seen parents leave their seats in the middle of a team’s performance when it isn’t their kid’s skit going on? It is distracting to the actors and to the audience members, and a gentle reminder from the host facilitator at the beginning of the performances can go a long way to keeping this from happening.
2. No talking during a performance. Unlike a real theater, the spaces like libraries, gyms and classrooms where most USAT performances take place have not been designed with noise in mind. Even a whisper in a small space can pull focus from the actors and derail their trains of thought. A policy of quiet during performances will also help ensure that teams who perform later due to their assigned letter will not have time to do additional planning and preparation during the performances of others.
3. Respect the rules about eating and drinking. In many school spaces there is no eating or drinking allowed. These rules should be respected by the coaches, teams and their family members throughout the Meet, and especially during P.A.R.T.Y. performances. Besides the potential for mess, many snacks come in noisy packaging and the unwrapping of a candy bar or crunching of potato chips can be just as distracting as talking.
4. Always applaud. We want students to gain confidence in their creative abilities and problem-solving through the course of the USAT season to promote positive risk-taking. Even performances that fall short of solving the problem, are difficult to hear or even are giggled through by the actors deserve the attention and respect of the audience. Every team should applaud and encourage the others, and in the rare case of heckling or booing this should result in a penalty against the offending team.
Unlike other types of performances, USAT teams also need to be sure to clean up after themselves. As soon as they are done with their performance they must clear the stage area and make it easy for the next team to set up. The facilitate clean-up, hosts can often arrange to have extra garbage cans brought in before the performances begin and set up near the staging area so the materials can be disposed of as soon as the students leave the stage.
Looking for more P.A.R.T.Y. in a Box tips? Check out the rest of the series: Front and Center, Make it Memorable, Backdrops Set the Scene, Costumes Make the Characters, and Props Add Pop.
Getting the Most out of SCAMPER: E is for Eliminate
When employing “eliminate” in your brainstorms, one way to think about it is that you are reducing something to its most essential elements. If you take the sound system out of a car, is it still a car? Of course it is. But what about the engine? Your first reaction may be to think that the engine is essential, but I would make an argument that it is really its shape that makes a car a car. Think about cars from The Flintstones, or that kids pedal around their yards before they can ride a bike. These do not have engines, but what other label would you give them other than car? This exercise of stripping something down in order to define it is a great way to get kids to think about the world around them and come to recognize how things may be similar or different in various ways.
It can also help them to create their P.A.R.T.Y. in a Box performances, by helping them get to the heart of what backdrops, costumes and props need in order represent something more complex. If they want to show a park, can they get by with just drawing a swing set? If they are going to make the audience believe they are carrying something heavy they don’t actually need a great weight, only a sac that looks full (and some good acting skills!).
The most straightforward way to use “eliminate” to get your students to stretch their brains is to start with something intact, and have them take turns eliminating elements and considering the consequences. This could be done systematically by first thinking of all the parts of a thing and then taking each out one by one. The more complex machine, organism or situation you begin with, the more opportunity there is to get rid of different elements, but you can always start simple and move to the more complex.
As I was writing this article I thought of a few prompts you could use with your students that all involve elimination. For instance, if you begin with an airplane and eliminate all the seats, would that lead to a more comfortable flight? Could they find a way to play with their electronic toys if the batteries are taken out? If someone loses their voice in the middle of an argument, what might happen? Or if a certain character was removed from a story, would it still have the same outcome?
Starting a USAT Team
The SCAMPER series will be back next week, but with only one month left to register we wanted to get some information out to you about how to start a new team if you are interested in coaching, or if you have a child who you think would enjoy the program.
Step 1: Identify 4-5 students, plus 2 alternates, in grades 5 through 8, to form a competition team. It might be fun to come up with a team name and, if funds are available, a team shirt/jersey for competitions! Some teams are made up students who are already friends, and some teams are created as a way to make new ones among people who are just interested in exploring their creative side in a fun and supportive way.
Step 2: Recruit another teacher or parent to serve as an additional coach or volunteer. Each team needs a Head Coach to successfully run a team, though additional coaches or adults (16 years or older) may be needed. Each team must provide at least one coach/volunteer to assist with the successful management of each Round Robin or Regional meet.
Step 3: Register your team with the national US Academic Triathlon office by Nov. 14, 2014. Final payment is due by Dec. 14, 2014. To register, complete either the Xcel spreadsheet or the PDF registration forms on the Registration page. You can fax, email, or snail mail it to the contact information below:
US Academic Triathlon
P.O. Box 333
Northfield, MN 55057
Fax: 507.301.3512
State Coordinator Email: sarahjksheldon@gmail.com
Step 4: Review the Program Manual, which will be sent electronically to first-time coaches upon successful registration, or can be downloaded here: Program Manual. Make sure you are familiar with all expectations of the Head Coach, additional coaches/volunteers, team members, and the competition process. During the course of your USAT season, you may be asked to host a meet at your school. The Program Manual and the State Coordinator will be your essential resources for hosting your first USAT Meet.
Step 5: Create your team’s Competition Kit – your team’s box of essentials necessary to work through any problem thrown at them during a Meet. See the Program Manual for details of what goes in your team’s Competition Kit.
Step 6: Practice! You can find practice problems on this site. You additional tips and practice ideas you can subscribe to the USAT blog or follow us on Facebook.
For questions about recuitment, please contact Sarah Sheldon at sarahjksheldon@gmail.com.
Getting the Most out of SCAMPER: A is for Adapt
One the defining characteristics of human beings is that we are great at adapting. You can find people all over the world in different climates, using different materials to make our homes and eating different food depending on what is available. We use tools to accomplish things we cannot do with our own two hands, and machines that are far stronger than any one person could ever be. More than any other creature on Earth, we are able to adapt to new challenges, and adapt our environment to suit us. And this all possible because of our ability to think creatively.
I asked Peggy Sheldon, the founder of USAT, what she thought about the word adapt, and I really liked her answer. She told me, “It is about seeing and using the patterns in the place, space, and time and using creativity to re-imagine landscape, social, and conceptual systems.” The emphasis on pattern recognition, another thing our big human brains are extremely adept at, is a key part of adaptation. For instance, the delicious Spanish cuisine known as “tapas” did not come about spontaneously. The story goes that there once was an owner of a tavern who had a space outside for his patrons to sit. This outdoor space was in the shade of a large tree, which made it cooler and more comfortable to sit outside, but the leaves and seeds from the tree would sometimes fall into the patrons’ drinks. The patrons would get annoyed and decide to take their business elsewhere. To counteract this problem, the owner started to serve his drinks with a thin slice of Serrano ham across the mouth of the glass to act as a cover, or “tapa”, to keep the seeds out. He saw a pattern of cause (seeds) and effect (loss of business) and adapted to the problem.
As it turned out, the patrons would finish their drinks and then eat the salty ham, which in turn made them more thirsty, which then led to them ordering another round of drinks. Pretty soon, the owner was offering different kinds of salty snacks free of charge, and other people started to catch on to this ingenious idea. So now in the Southern parts of Spain you rarely order a drink without also getting a small plate of olives or some other salty snack along with it free of charge. And from there, chefs started to develop dishes that are almost exclusively served in this way, and a whole new cuisine was born and continued to spread to different countries.
Adaptation is a method of changing actions and attitudes in response to recognizing the need for that change, and this takes a flexible and creative mind. During the course of a USAT season, or even in the middle of a Mind Sprint, students may find it advantageous to adapt. A strategy that seems like a good idea “on paper” may turn out to take too much time or they lose track of the original question they are being asked to answer. The events in USAT are all timed and the season is short, so to be the most successful at Meets students need to be able to quickly evaluate if strategies work and how to change those strategies and try new things to improve. One way coaches and parents can help this process it to take some time after each Meet to talk about what worked and what didn’t work, and to brainstorm new ways to Meet those challenges should they arise again. And it important to remember that changing your mind or your strategy midstream doesn’t mean the first idea was “bad,” but perhaps with some modification you can come to the “best” conclusion.
usacademictriathlon.com 