Regional round of the Logical Olympiad 2017 in Brno

Tereza Bohatá

Alarm clock goes off at 5:40. Getting up for work? No, I took annual leave this year to be able to help with organizing the regional round of the Logical Olympiad. Fortunately, I am not alone, so it is time for me to get up quickly and to get to the venue, i.e. one of lecture rooms at Masaryk University; at 7AM sharp, I am greeting the other members of the team.

To bring everything from the cars, prepare the prizes, bring some additional benches, to prepare the entrance, place the signs, prepare bags for competitors... There was a lot of it, and thinking of it in retrospect, some team members had to have at least three hands to be able to do it all in time. Even before everything was prepared, the first competitors started to arrive. Is it that late? No, fortunately not, it is just that some competitors just couldn’t wait, and arrived early. We are quickly finishing the preparations, and letting in the earliest of the early birds.

A warm welcome, some technical info, and the first part can start. Tests are handed out, and we can go to the team of evaluators for a short meeting, where individual tasks are assigned. In retrospect, I can say that it was probably the longest break we had during the day. As soon as the tests were collected, the process of evaluating the tests and double-checking the evaluations (what if one of us made a mistake in evaluating or in adding numbers?) began. And every time we were approaching the end, a new batch of tests arrived. Besides, we had to share some answers with our colleagues – some tasks were understood in an unintended way by the competitors, but even such an alternate solution was logically correct, and at Logical Olympiad, we just cannot say that such a solution is incorrect because we did not expect it. For this reason, we had to put our heads together several times to check such alternate solutions. A good thing that there are quite a few of us, as such clever children just cannot be underestimated.

Once all of the problems were sorted out and everything began to run smoothly, the lunch break came. Besides refreshment, it also meant alterations to our team, as not all of us could have stayed for the whole day, so some members of the team left while others arrived. Fortunately, the new ones slid in very well, and we continued after the break with the same zeal as before.

After the last tests were assessed, all that was left was to declare the results, hand out the prizes, say good bye to the oldest competitors, collect the tests, tidy up the lecture room, and carry everything back to the cars... Shame we don’t have three arms... Oh, wait – I almost forgot the most important information! We arranged next year’s meeting. Same place, same time. Will you join us?

Regional round of the Logical Olympiad 2017 in Brno

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