October Tournament tomorrow, 10/15

Quick reminder that our October Tournament is tomorrow at Pioneer High School, not Huron High School as was listed on the original schedule sent out.  All students should be there no later than 8:30am, and plan on being done by around 12 or 12:15pm.

Another reminder that if you haven't already done so, please fill out a registration form for this year at http://www.a2ag.org/registration-form/ Having all Ann Arbor AG students registered with up to date contact information is crucial for us as we begin to plan for the State and National tournaments at the end of the year.

Next Monday we begin On-Sets!  Equations Worksheets will be posted next week as well.

Follow Us On Twitter; also a classic film introducing Equations

If you are reading this on a mobile device or have an ad blocker running, you probably can't see our twitter feed on this blog page, so you may be missing out.   We tweet at @clagueag so follow us.

Also, if you want to show someone what Equations is like or want to see for yourself, Clague alumna (and a winner this year of the Academic Games Outstanding Senior award) Claire Fishman has a video on youtube explaining the basics of Basic Equations.  The video is a few years old so a couple rules have changed, but on the other hand, there are cats. 

The Game of On-Sets

We have now moved along to playing On-Sets (in addition to Equations and Presidents) during our practices.

Clague players will already know everything in this post, but just in case some parents or people interested in learning Academic Games are reading, here is a (very) simplified version of what On-Sets is about. 

On-Sets is a game of set theory, and therefore a game of logic. The game consists of cards, cubes, a timer, a "flub", and a board. 

Cards have between zero and four colored dots on them -- blue, red, green, or yellow.  This means there are 16 (=2^4) cards in the set.  Only some of them are dealt (face-up) and these become the "universe".

There are several types of cubes.   Eight have colors on them.  A yellow cube means the set of all cards which have a yellow dot on them -- and similarly for blue, red, and green.  Seven of the other cubes mostly have set operators such as union, intersection, and complement.   [If you're new to set theory, it might be helpful to see the Wikipedia Page on basic set theory]

The three remaining cubes have digits on them.  One player -- the "goal-setter" -- uses these cubes to form a numeric goal.  Players must then be prepared to write an expression using set theory where the number of cards in the universe described by their formula equals the goal that was set. 

The rest of the game is similar to Equations -- as cubes are moved onto the various sections of the board it changes which cubes must (or must not) be used in solutions, and players look for opportunities to "challenge" the moves of their opponents.

There is a lot more to On-Sets -- particularly at the Adventurous level that the Clague team plays at.  The complete rules and other documents about the game can be found at the Michigan Leagues of Academic Games website

Variations in Equations

So far this year in practice we have been working on Equations and Presidents.  For (Adventurous) Equations, after the cubes are rolled three Variations are chosen which affect how Goals and Solutions are composed.

These variations are different for Elementary (5th/6th grade) and Middle (7th/8th grade) and the list varies from year to year, so just about everyone on the team has new variations to learn each year.

We have now introduced all the variations (except "Multiple of k" for the Middles) and will be using them in our Friday tournaments right away.

You might want your own copy of the variation sheets, in which case have a look at the Michigan League of Academic Games website where you can find many useful items including the Elementary Variations Sheet and the Middle Variations Sheet.

Winter Break Status update

Hello All,

Hope everyone is having an enjoyable winter break.  I wanted to provide a little status update.  When practice resumes next week, we will begin preparations in earnest for the State tournament in March.  I will email a letter later this week providing details for the tournament.  The cost per student this year for the tournament will be $335.  This includes registration, room, board, meals, and transportation to and from the tournament.  We will have limited scholarship money available.

Some important dates coming up in early January:
Saturday January 11 - Saturday tournament
Monday January 13 - Linguishtik worksheets due.  Presidents and Propaganda questions from 8th graders due.
Friday January 17 - State tournament money and health form due
Monday January 20 - No practice
Tuesday January 21 - Special practice, State tournament teams announced.

Please note we also have an Academic Games sponsored fun night coming up (more details coming really soon).  This is our big fundraiser for the year, and we ask all Academic Games parents to volunteer at the Fun Night.

I will post some info detailing the Propaganda techniques we learned before break and some that we are going to learn right after break.  I have also posted a set of Presidents worksheets on the right.  No points will be awarded for these, but they are a very useful study tool.  I would also recommend everyone take a look at AGLOA.org, the official national AG website.  They have a section called online learning that has both Presidents and Propaganda quizzes.

Only 64 more days until States!

A group of collective nouns

I came across this great list of animal congregations and thought it might be of some use to our budding Linguishtik players.

Also, the Elementary Ling packet has been posted on the right.  Although it is not due until after winter break, it would be very helpful to print out the worksheets as we learn all of these things in practice.  Middle Ling packet will be posted this coming weekend.