General Questions

[Balsa Man]

technically gravity is moving the mass and the motor is acting as a brake

Yup, and that's why I, too, would call/see it as the motor "moving" it - because it is controlling/defining the movement - and doing it by putting energy in. Without the string attached to the rotating shaft, the block would fall at an accelerating rate (9.8 m/ses/sec). because of the energy/control from the motor, it descends at a constant rate - the motor is what's moving it, not gravity.

[yousmellchinese123]

For the Energy transfer List, are we supposed to be specific numbers like the exact height of the golfball raising, flagpole, and the time the mass is moved?

[cypressfalls Robert]

we don't really need specific numbers , although i'm not sure for the mass moving time, because you could put 10 seconds for the task or 40 seconds for the task and the bonus.

[Primate]

we don't really need specific numbers , although i'm not sure for the mass moving time, because you could put 10 seconds for the task or 40 seconds for the task and the bonus.

I don't think it's necessary, actually. The judges, provided you get ones that know what they're doing, will time the moving mass and measure the golfball themselves, just to be sure. They should go through everything with you beforehand, too--the labeling of tasks is just a formality.

[cypressfalls Robert]

I've seen alot of teams do this but do we need to label our tasks on the actual machine, like put numbers on stickers that corespond to our task list?

[Balsa Man]

I've seen alot of teams do this but do we need to label our tasks on the actual machine, like put numbers on stickers that corespond to our task list?

You don't need to, but if you want to get points you would want to. Rule 5 a is pretty clear; "...each task intended to earn points must be numbered and lettered on the TSL and in the device."

[cypressfalls Robert]

How much has everyone been putting into their missions, money wise? I for one have invested over $150, and will be replacing the sides of the mission with plexiglass, or another hundred or two.

[Balsa Man]

How much has everyone been putting into their missions, money wise? I for one have invested over $150, and will be replacing the sides of the mission with plexiglass, or another hundred or two.

Pretty much everything was stuff/bits/pieces we had around. Probably around $150 if we'd had to buy it all. A far cry from 2005, which ended up around $1,000

[johnnyB2000]

I helped guide a team with Mission Possible. They misinterpreted the rules and used a photocell to power a motor with a propeller. The science instructor found a clarification in the rules and we changed the circuit to a photoresistor/relay circuit to turn on the motor. The relay was a Radio Shack reed relay. It consists of a coil and a magnetic reed switch in a glass envelope. It worked well and seemed the right thing to do after reading clarifications in the rules.

The team however lost some 200 points on the clarity of labeling on their device. They were within 1 second of the time, but got a violation (I thinking knocking them down to teir 2), because they were told their reed relay was not a mechanical relay and gave them an unfair advantage. The relay was not a solid state device and it did not use any type of transistor. I do not understand this ruling, since the only electric components in the reed relay were a switch, coil and capacitor, which are all allowed in the competition. Our schools team went from 2nd place to out of the ranking in Mission Possible, through this interpretation.

Oh yeah, we used a 5v reed relay with the photo resister (200 ohms to 40K ohms) and a 6V lantern battery to drive a 1.5-3v motor with a propeller. It worked extremely well too. I am sure a regular 5v relay would have worked, but the reed relay did not use so much current to overheat the photoresistor.

[Balsa Man]

The team however lost some 200 points on the clarity of labeling on their device. They were within 1 second of the time, but got a violation (I thinking knocking them down to teir 2), because they were told their reed relay was not a mechanical relay and gave them an unfair advantage. Our schools team went from 2nd place to out of the ranking in Mission Possible, through this interpretation.

Unless there is more to this story, you got scr__d in more than one way.
It sounds like the judges did not understand what a reed relay is, and how it works. It is mechanical in its operation; it is not a solid-state relay. IMHO, they were just flat wrong in that decision. As to the "200 points", that makes no sense at all; rule 7.a.iv. says you get "25 points if the TSL is 100% accurate...", so if they were not giving (i.e., deducting possible) points solely for describing a reed relay as a mechanical relay, that would be 25, not 200 points. Is it possible, when you say "clarity of labeling", that you did not have the devices in your box labled with number and letter (Rule 5a)?