Saturday, March 23, 2013

Quiztronomy - Report

Set and Conducted by : Rohan Danait, Omkar Yarguddi and Payas Awadhutkar
Flavour : Astronomy quiz
Format : 25 question elims
6 teams in the finals. 36 question IB. 1 written theme round. 1 LVC.

Results:
1st : Varad Naik and Aniketh Rallabhandi - 85 pts
2nd : Albert Paul and Rohit Chaoji - 85 pts (2nd on tie-break)
3rd : Ranajeet Soman and Aditya Chandorkar - 60 pts

Other teams on stage were : 
Supreeth Ravish and Aditya Mitkari - 50 pts
Nilay Mokashi and Ramchandra Karanje - 50 pts
Chinmay Kirtane (solo) - 45 pts

Report:
We were assured the quiz would not be theoretical (boring) astronomy and it was indeed so. The elims were excellent with a few hardcore astronomy questions, some which were 'workoutable' and some astronomy fundae seen in pop-culture. People who are not astronomy buffs (like our team) also had a decent chance of qualifying. 
The finals were also good. More questions here needed a slightly more-than-average knowledge of astronomy which is how it should be in the finals. Still there were a considerable amount of questions which had clues pointing to the answers and some questions with references seen in pop-culture. The theme round was excellent and the individual questions were nice. I don't like LVCs and this one was no different. Only one team got it on the last slide. 
There were a couple of negatives. Some questions could have been framed better. The clues in some questions could have been presented in a way people could have guessed at least. Also, there were a couple of questions with absolutely nothing to do with astronomy ( Chandrasekhar being the nephew of C.V.Raman has nothing to do with astronomy nor do the mortal offspring of Zeus). 
Overall, it was a very good effort by the quizmasters. Even for non-lovers of astronomy (myself being an example) it was interesting till the end. The quiz started and finished more or less on time which is rarely to be seen nowadays. Hope the next quiz is even better.

2 comments:

Rohan said...

Subramanyam Chandrashekhar was an astrophysicist, and most of his work is in the astro- subjects e.g. the Chandrashekhar limit.

Omkar Yarguddi said...

The last question (about the mortal offsprings of Zeus) was never intended to be a part of the quiz. The quizmasters, driven to desperation, had to use it for chances that both teams would answer this one correctly, as they did with the first tiebreaker. Regarding the astronomy connect- some mortal offsprings of Zeus, like Perseus, Hercules and Pollux are themselves major constellations or parts of major constellations.