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Blue Lobster Bowl

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The Blue Lobster Bowl: Volunteer Roles

Every year, over 70 volunteers from the local community come out to make MIT Sea Grant's Blue Lobster Bowl possible. These volunteers can play an active role in the competition as competition officials, question graders, or act as support personnel.

Each room of the competition includes a team of 7 volunteer competition officals. The competition officials in each room are the Moderator, Science Judge, Rules Judge, Scorekeeper, Timekeeper, and Runner.

To volunteer, please register at http://s.zoomerang.com/s/BLB030313.

Volunteer assignments are made by the Regional Coordinator of the Blue Lobster Bowl. If you are interested in serving in a specific capacity, feel free to make your preference known, and it will be accomidated whenever possible. However, please note that orchestrating volunteer roles is a complicated process, and you may not always be assigned your first preference in roles. Thanks for your patience.

Competition Officials

All competition officials will be trained before the day of the competition.

Moderator
The Moderator is responsible for running the competition rounds within a room. The competition is mainly an oral competition; questions are read aloud by the Moderator during each buzzer round within a match. The Moderator also formally recognizes students who have buzzed in to answer questions, and informs the student if his or her answer was correct. The Moderator is also responsible for maintaining the official score sheet.
Science Judge
All questions that are used in the competition have been vetted by scientific experts. But competing students have the right to challenge the scientific validity of the questions that they are being asked. If a question is challenged, the Science Judge resolves that challenge. If the challenge can not be resolved within the room, it is sent to an appeals room for a final decision.
Rules Judge
Like any NOSB competition, the Blue Lobster Bowl runs according to a strict set of game rules. The Rules Judge makes sure that all of the people in the competition room abide by those rules. For several years, the Rules Judges for the Blue Lobster Bowl have come to us from the local volunteer organization People Making a Difference.
Scorekeeper
The Scorekeeper awards points to each team based on the team responses to questions asked durring the buzzer rounds. The Scorekeeper also keeps a running record of the score during each competition round.
Timekeeper
The Timekeeper operates the official competiton clock, and announces the middle and end of each buzzer match. The Timekeeper also manages and announces the time remaining in the Team Challenge Questions section of a competition round.
Runner
The Runner keeps the competition running smoothly and in a timely manner by bringing completed Team Challenge Question forms to the Judge's Appeals room, and returing the graded results to the competition room. The Runner also monitors traffic flow in the competition room, and is available to help with any other room needs.

Grading

In addition to the competition officials that run the matches in each room, the Blue Lobster Bowl uses volunteers to grade the longer, hand-written Team Challenge Questions. Volunteers are situated in the Judge's Appeals room, and grade team responses to Team Challenge Questions as they are brought to the Appeals room by runners.

Support Roles

Volunteers interested in helping with the Blue Lobster Bowl in a general capacity can assist in directing the student teams to the right rooms, helping with the distribution of competition materials, and making sure that competiton meals run smoothly.

Questions?

To learn more about the program, or ask questions, please contact us at: BLB@mit.edu.

To volunteer, please register at http://s.zoomerang.com/s/BLB030313.

This page was last modified: March 22, 2013 1:50 pm