2022 Middle School Interstate National Tournament ("MS NASAT", Online, June 4)

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CPiGuy
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2022 Middle School Interstate National Tournament ("MS NASAT", Online, June 4)

Post by CPiGuy »

I am excited to announce the second (annual?) Middle School Interstate National Tournament (MINT), to be held online June 4, 2022. I will be directing.

Eligibility

This tournament will be open to all-star teams representing all states, the District of Columbia, and all US territories. Non-American countries may enter as a country-wide team. Each state or equivalent may enter multiple teams, with up to six players on its roster, up to four of whom may be playing at any one time. Any player who was enrolled in the 8th grade or below in a school physically located in that state during the 2021-2022 academic year is eligible to play on their state's team. Students who are not enrolled in a physical school are generally also eligible for their home state (and are likely not eligible for another state simply because they attend an online school headquartered in that state); contact me to work out specific details.

Schedule and Format

The tournament will start at 10am Eastern / 9am Central / 7am Pacific on June 4th. The format will depend on the number of teams, but all teams will be guaranteed eight games (and ideally nine, but some field sizes -- such as last year's field of 9 teams -- make this very difficult to achieve).

The tournament will likely be run on Zoom using buzzin.live, unless I am unable to obtain enough premier Zoom credentials to facilitate a smoothly-run tournament, in which case it will use Discord. This will be announced well in advance of the tournament; regardless of the gameplay platform I will likely use a Discord server for back end coordination and live communication with teams (which will be open to all participants, but which only one representative from each team will need to join).

Because of this tournament's status as a high-level all-star tournament, there will be more stringent anti-cheating measures than a regular online tournament; players should expect to be required to have their hands visible on camera at all times, whether by using multiple cameras or by using an external device such as a mouse, phone, or game controller to buzz. The precise details of these measures are TBD but will be announced well in advance of the tournament to ensure that students are prepared (and will almost certainly be similar to last year's, as well as the NAQT and PACE online integrity policies used at those organizations' online national tournaments last year).

If public health conditions in June make it possible and teams are willing to, they may travel to play the tournament together, in part or in whole, but no physical travel will be required on the part of any participants. This tournament is being held online not only because of the coronavirus pandemic but also in order to limit the costs and logistics challenges that accompany an in-person national event.

The tournament will be using the DART II question set produced by the Detroit Country Day School team and associates. It is targeting a "regular-plus" high school difficulty; as such, it will be more difficult than middle school nationals but still accessible and meaningfully playable by strong middle school players. Both tossups and bonuses will be read, and the tournament will conform to ACF rules for online play.

Players are also reminded that they may avail themselves of the quizbowl misconduct form and that they will be expected to abide by the PACE Code of Conduct. Players, coaches, and other tournament participants may also contact me directly if they have any concerns about their safety or comfort at the event.

Fees and Registration

The entry fee for this tournament will be $100 for the first team from a given state and $80 for subsequent teams from that state.

To register, please email me at [email protected] with the subject line "MINT Registration for [State]". You need not have officially selected your roster(s) at the time of registration. In the email, please indicate the organization (if any) choosing the team(s), and the number of teams that your state expects to bring. If your registration includes a roster, please include the full names, grade level, and school affiliation of each of the named players.

I will accept all registrations presented by official state quizbowl organizations (cf. ASCA, MOQBA) automatically, unless I am presented with an extremely strong reason not to accept that registration. I will behave similarly towards registrations presented by individuals or organizations that are also currently or historically the sponsors for their state's high school NASAT team. If you are not a representative of an official state organization or an established NASAT sponsor, I recommend you include at least a provisional roster with your registration. If I receive two or more registrations representing the same state, I will consult with regional circuit figures and determine the best course of action, which may be to reject one of the registrations outright or to ask the sponsors to work together.

Staffing

Staffers will be paid $40. If you are interested in staffing, please fill out this form. I will contact staffers with more information a few weeks before the tournament.

Current field and interested teams

California (1+)
Georgia (1+)
Illinois (1+)
Maryland (2)
Massachusetts (1+)
Texas (1+)
Conor Thompson (he/it)
Bangor High School '16
University of Michigan '20
Iowa State University '25
Tournament Format Database
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CPiGuy
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Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2016 8:19 pm
Location: Ames, Iowa

Re: 2022 Middle School Interstate National Tournament ("MS NASAT", Online, June 4)

Post by CPiGuy »

The original post has been updated with a list of registered and interested states so far. There is still time to register -- this tournament is online so scheduling, etc. is very flexible!

There are a number of Texas students interested (certainly enough to field one team, and potentially multiple) but (so far) nobody to organize the team -- if you would like to help organize a Texas team let me know!

If you are interested in playing for Illinois, Soren Gjesfjeld of Bloomington is organizing the team. If you are interested in playing for California, Aatreyo Bhattacharyya of Mira Loma is organizing the team. If you don't know how to contact them, let me know and I'll get you in touch.

I could also use staffers! If you would like to staff, please fill out the form!
Conor Thompson (he/it)
Bangor High School '16
University of Michigan '20
Iowa State University '25
Tournament Format Database
User avatar
CPiGuy
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Posts: 1070
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2016 8:19 pm
Location: Ames, Iowa

Re: 2022 Middle School Interstate National Tournament ("MS NASAT", Online, June 4)

Post by CPiGuy »

Congratulations to Massachusetts for going 9-1 and winning the tournament without need for a final.
California finished in second place with a 7-3 record and Maryland B finished in third place with a 6-4 record.

These were some extremely impressive performances on a hard high school set. The top five individual scorers were:
Andrew Gao (MA)
Pranavkrishna Bharanidharan (CA)
Bennett Tschoepe (TX)
Shravan Yoagentharan (MD A)
Eleanor Heydt (GA)

Full stats are available here.

Thanks to everyone who played the tournament and also to our excellent staffers for making everything run smoothly.
Conor Thompson (he/it)
Bangor High School '16
University of Michigan '20
Iowa State University '25
Tournament Format Database
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