The events change every year, so information is not always available.  However, some events do repeat.  This section contains any information we have collected from past years about these events, as well as how to go about preparing for any event.

The first place to start is always the Rulebook.  Each event for this year is listed, as well as any limitations on what might be included in this event.  For example, the Starry Starry Night event is about space objects, and the rulebook will tell you which stars, constellations, etc. to focus on.  The rulebook will also tell you if you are allowed to bring notes into the event.  If notes are allowed, the number of pages allowed is per team.  Unless otherwise stated, these notes can be handwritten, printed for a computer, include drawings, or whatever is most useful.

You can also check our Resources Folder for any previous year's notes or documents.

Email milpitaseso@gmail.com with your specific questions about events when needed.  And if you create any useful tools that you'd like to share with future Noble classes, please email them to nobleptacoordinator@gmail.com so they can be included in this page.

Anatomy and Disease

Here is some information.  For this event, students will most likely rotate between stations with models, pictures, diagrams, etc and questions about the systems. Remember to focus on the systems listed in the rulebook, but there might be questions about other things. It looks like there is a focus on disease transmission, check the rules. 

What to know about the cardiovascular system

Swollen lymph nodes

Cardiovascular equations you need to know

Kidney and Nephron

Barge Building

The foil to build the barge will usually be 12 x 12, and part of the event is students knowing how much their barge can hold.

Aluminum Boat Tutorial

• You can use for reference and experiment with different models

• Practice until you have the best model and can build it quickly

Circuit Lab

Code Busters

General help

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yFZGF8FHSg OR https://toebes.com/codebusters/index.html

For some ciphers, you'll want to copy the information from the Resource Sheet onto the test page so you don't waste time finding it.  Specifically, this can help with the Caesar and Atbash ciphers.

Each participant should learn all ciphers, but some ciphers only need one specialist.  Those are Atbash, Dancing Men, Pigpen, and 

In general, it can be helpful to just figure out every other letter and try to guess the words.  If you can't guess, you can go back and translate more letters.

Pigpen / Masonic

https://www.dcode.fr/pigpen-cipher

You'll need to memorize the key and be able to draw it.  This one is easy but not worth many points.

You can create your own tests at https://www.dcode.fr/pigpen-cipher 

Knights Templar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1VKkxTs1uc OR https://toebes.com/codebusters/KnightsTemplarEncrypt.html and you can make your own tests at https://www.dcode.fr/templars-cipher 

You'll need to memorize the key and be able to draw it.

Baconian

https://www.dcode.fr/bacon-cipher OR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga_zcVxh2Fg and you can create your own tests at https://www.dcode.fr/bacon-cipher 

This cipher is about finding the binary pattern in the code.  The steps to solve are 1) Separate the code into 5-character chunks (you can draw lines on the test itself).  2) Figure out the pattern (it could be different letters, colors, fonts, sizes, capitalization, or anything). 3) Figure out which one translates to A and which to B (there cannot be a double-B at the beginning since that doesn't translate to anything).  4) Translate the letters until you know what it says.

Aristocrat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFcTj_l7BiU OR https://toebes.com/codebusters/Samples/Solving%20a%20K1%20Alphabet.htm 

This is a hard cipher.  Basically, you should memorize which letters are most common, and which letter patterns are too.  Then use that info to guess which letters may translate to what.  If you see a lot of Q's, and then find a lot of RHQ words, then Q probably equals E.  And RHQ will probably translate to THE.  Keep guessing until you get something that makes sense.

Caesar

https://www.dcode.fr/caesar-cipher

This is basically a phase shift cipher.  The first thing is to figure out what the shift number is.

Tips: 1) Teach the kids that a +24 shift equals a -2 shift.  It's much faster to go backwards 2 than forwards 24.  Find the smaller shift and use that.  2) Look for single letters.  They are probably either A or I.  Usually A will be in the middle of a sentence and I will be at the beginning.  3) What letter shows up most often?  It is probably an E.  4) Look for double letters.  They are usually E, O, T, L, or S.  5) If all else fails, pick a word and try shifting just that one shift at a time.  Try to choose the most restrictive word, such as one with around 4 letters.

How to choose which ones to do?  Some caesar ciphers are worth 75pts. Some are worth 300pts. Find the balance between the length and difficulty to points. Make sure to do the first one very fast to get the time bonus. That is the best way to be ahead of other teams.  Make sure that everyone studies this cipher. It is worth the most points and is most of the problems.

Shifts are very confusing. Remember that they move the alphabet of the ciphertext to the next letters when positive. That means, when going from ciphertext to plaintext, a positive shift makes the alphabet go backwards.  However, the terms don't matter when solving.

Atbash

https://www.dcode.fr/atbash-cipher OR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBlDAZ-2ByM

You can create your own test at https://www.dcode.fr/atbash-cipher 

When encrypting, take letters from the top and map it to the row on the bottom.  This cipher just takes practice to be faster.

Dancing Men / Sherlock Holmes

https://www.dcode.fr/dancing-men-cipher

You can create your own tests at https://toebes.com/codebusters/DancingMenEncrypt.html

You can just decode enough letters to guess words.  This cipher just takes practice to be faster.

Tapcode

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LiXDR52uQ0 OR https://toebes.com/codebusters/TapCodeEncrypt.html 

Porta

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjlblVwO9vo OR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjlblVwO9vo 

Crime Busters

Ecology

This event focuses on one biome (dessert, rain-forest, etc.)

Basic Ecology Youtube Playlist

General Principles

Desert Biomes - National Geographic

Intro to Ecology and its Importance

Egg Drop

In this event, students enter a room and use the provided construction materials (unknown until the event, though sometimes they will send you a list if you email them) to construct something to keep an egg safe during a drop of roughly 1 story.  Mark Rober has a video with good design ideas.  Since the materials provided are unknown until the event, have students focus on a general strategy (pack egg with cushions, add a parachute, suspend with rubber bands, etc.) that can work with multiple materials.  Update:  We were able to email and get a list of materials (see the Resources Folder) that were provided one year, though they did not provide a lot of any of the materials.  The teams each got one bag of supplies, probably a gallon-sized.  One team estimated they got about 10 cotton balls.

Experimental Design

This is basically doing a science fair experiment but in 50 minutes only.  They will walk into a room with some supplies, and are usually told they can run one of 2 experiments on them.  They choose the experiment.

The students need to know what a hypothesis, dependent vs. independent variables, materials, procedure, data collection, data analysis, and conclusion are.  It helps to divide this list and each student is in charge of 2 or 3 of them.

A good key here is to pick the simplest experiment allowed.  They often give 2 choices, and one will sound interesting but that one is usually too hard to do in the time allowed.  The other key is to divide the writing tasks amongst the students ahead of time (eg. Katie is in charge of writing the hypothesis and data collection while Charlie is in charge of writing the procedure and variables).  Students should plan on discussing for a short time at the start, then some of them can start the experiment and collect data while the others write their parts (hypothesis, materials, procedure, etc. can be done while experiment is running).

Elementary school will look different, but here are higher-level resources:

Middle Schooler ExD Checklist

Experimental Design Report 2024 Div B.docx - Google Docs.pdf (Middle Schooler Test Sheet, Empty) and the 2025 blank test sheet

Basic Overview (Division C - High Schoolers) 

Video Explanation

Fossils (the name may vary)

See the Resources Folder for some past-year's notes.  Students usually rotate between stations with pictures of fossils.  The format of questions is probably:

a. Name the dinosaur or animal.

b. Answer a question about what it eats, what eats it, etc. 

c. Answer a question about where it lived, where the fossils were found, etc. 

d. Other questions related to what's listed in the rules.

It is probably helpful to have a picture of each fossil and animal, with information on that animal, in an easy-to-find format.  It is probably useful to split the list of animals to study with any partners, so each student has fewer animals to research.

Remember you can bring notes in, so don't waste time memorizing genus and when they lived.  Just make sure students know how to read the notes for that stuff.  Concentrate on them understanding 

https://www.youtube.com/@TheDinosaurChannel

The main extinction events

Geological time scale and how to use it

How to read a cladogram 

Hominids and how they evolved 

Trilobites

Insect Investigation

Noble has a binder students can take into the event with them.  The key to this is that students must be able to find information in the binder quickly.

Leaf and Tree

Noble has a binder students can take into the event with them.  The key to this is that students must be able to find information in the binder quickly.

Tree anatomy resource 

Science Olympiad Forestry video

How to identify tree species

Forestry terms

The Science of Tree Identification

https://www.audubon.org/  

Map It Out

List of Map Projections

Milpitas

Reading Bathymetric Maps

Reading Cartograms

Reading Topographic Maps

Mission Fossible

See notes on Fossil event

Mystery Architecture

Mystery Powders

Students are given a few white powders to identify.  Some of these might be a mix of powders, some might be a single substance.  Students will perform experiments on each powder to try to identify what it is made of.

This event does take practice and studying.  Students need to know what sorts of experiments are helpful for identifying their substances.

Heating sugar

Vinegar and Baking Soda

Cornstarch and Water

Plaster of Paris

Ornithology

Studying should probably be like in Fossils above.

https://academy.allaboutbirds.org/

https://www.audubon.org/ 

https://www.birdzilla.com/learn/birds-of-california/ 

Paper Plane Pandemonium

Pasta building

Sometimes this is to build a bridge, sometimes a tower.  It is usually tested by putting a cup on the structure and filling it with pennies or some other weight to see how much weight the structure can withstand.

The winning structures are often simple and flat.  You don't have a lot of time to build, and are often limited in how you can keep the pasta together (ie. you can only use clay, not rubber bands or anything like that).  The winning structures also usually use bundles of pasta.  This means you 'glue' together 5 or more pasta noodles and use those as a 'beam' for your structure.

Tower Basics: Part 1: Introduction

https://makefuncreating.com/crafts/how-to-build-a-tall-spaghetti-and-marshmallow-tower/

Starry Starry Night

See the Resources Folder for a slideshow of some basic information plus some past-years' stars/galaxies/constellations/etc.

https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/constellations/en/

https://science.nasa.gov/earth/facts

Who's Fault is it?

This event is about geological information, including the earth's layers, types of rocks, and earthquakes.

Wind Power

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/renewable-sources/

https://www.epa.gov/power-sector/electric-power-sector-basics#:~:text=Power%20plants%20that%20burn%20fuels,the%20blades%20and%20generates%20electricity. 

Write It Do It (WIDI)

In this event, you have 2 students.  Student 1 will go into a room and look at a structure built with simple items (like post-it notes, paper clips, stickers, etc.).  They will have some time to write down instructions on how to recreate the structure they're looking at.  Then, this paper is handed to Student 2 (with no verbal instructions) along with supplies.  Student 2 will have to use Student 1's instructions to recreate the structure.  Points are given for good instructions as well as how well the final result matches the test structure.

For this event, practicing with your partner will expose areas to work on.  Maybe a student needs to focus on reading more carefully, or writing faster, or maybe they need to come up with a shorthand system (eg. divide the mat into quadrants and be able to say which quadrant something is in, or focus on a latitude/longitude system they both know).

Write It Do It 1.1: Introduction & Basic Rules - Continue her series!

SciOly at Home WIDI Edition!