Events 2016-2017

[John Richardsim]

Any hope for ornithology after invasive species? Or will it be pushed back 2 years?

Well, prior to the addition of invasives to the rotation, it would have looked like Ento->Herp->Birds->Forestry, so I'm assuming the rotation from here will be Invasives ('16&'17) -> Herp ('18&'19) -> Birds ('20&'21) -> and so forth (can't exactly predict this far, but it will most likely continue on in the same manner).

[chalker]

It's near the end of the season, so I"m going to put out my usual offer regarding the rules. We're always interested in hearing feedback / suggestions on changes to make next year. The day after the National Tournament the rules committee will meet to try to lock down the rules for the next season. While I can't guarantee we'll adopt suggestions made here, I can at least promise we'll listen to them and consider them.

[RJohnson]

My main suggestion would be to include a bonus in electric vehicle to introduce programming challenges more significant than going a linear distance for teams who are capable of going to extra distance (no pun intended).

[watermydoing14]

It's near the end of the season, so I"m going to put out my usual offer regarding the rules. We're always interested in hearing feedback / suggestions on changes to make next year. The day after the National Tournament the rules committee will meet to try to lock down the rules for the next season. While I can't guarantee we'll adopt suggestions made here, I can at least promise we'll listen to them and consider them.

One suggestion I have for Robot Arm is maybe making the barrier for scoring in Robot Arm lower? There were soooo many no-shows in that event at Regionals, and our arm barely worked as well. Maybe giving a fixed number of points for the documentation rather than multiplying your run score by a certain amount so that teams that at least try but can't get a working arm in time get some credit. Or maybe some points for having some sort of device that fits certain requirements.

[Chris_L]

For Robot Arm, a more diverse range of competition would be better imo (many teams found it too easy). Something where even the worst teams can get a few points, and the best teams are more stratified than all perfect scores. The main reason I say this is because our state had at least 4 perfect scores and 2-3 near perfect scores, so slightly harder items might be better?

[retired1]

Electric Vehicle: It is electric, not electronic. At a minimum, make it where the car can not go in reverse. If it does, penalize it by using about where it first stopped. Go to one battery for all electricity. The challenge then is to get the car to still do what you want it to do.
It could have a can placed on centerline like some of the other vehicle events to make it harder. Few schools can afford the electronics costs and the amount of time to program the microprocessors. The current rules make it a rather elitism event.

Robot arm: dropping the time to 2 min will do away with multiple max scores. Or, make it interesting and drop the time to 1 min 30 seconds.

Tower: to make it where they can not use designs from 2012, the base could be shorter which will make it difficult to hold 15kg without a major weight increase for most. Another option would be to go back to 20kg.

Helicopter: Keep the bonus within reason. The bonus for the Sikorsky type rotors was just too big. If you want to hold down the flight times, increase the min weight or have less rubber.

[windu34]

Electric Vehicle: I agree with the previous comment above on making the programming challenge more difficult. Learning to program was one of my favorite and most rewarding experiences in my scioly career; lets make it interesting. Maybe some type of bonus in which there are multiple cans and the vehicle could "weave" through a series of cans for a specified bonus.

[soyuppy]

It's near the end of the season, so I"m going to put out my usual offer regarding the rules. We're always interested in hearing feedback / suggestions on changes to make next year. The day after the National Tournament the rules committee will meet to try to lock down the rules for the next season. While I can't guarantee we'll adopt suggestions made here, I can at least promise we'll listen to them and consider them.

Road Scholar - Please provide rules and guidelines for facilitator/event organizer to provide room with tables large enough for individual team to open and view maps. A class room with individual small desks is hard for team to work together and have any surface area to open the map

[Magikarpmaster629]

It's near the end of the season, so I"m going to put out my usual offer regarding the rules. We're always interested in hearing feedback / suggestions on changes to make next year. The day after the National Tournament the rules committee will meet to try to lock down the rules for the next season. While I can't guarantee we'll adopt suggestions made here, I can at least promise we'll listen to them and consider them.

I know this isn't your department, but using a new topic for Astronomy (like nebulae or cosmology) instead of recycling an old one would be very interesting.

[Destiny24]

It's near the end of the season, so I"m going to put out my usual offer regarding the rules. We're always interested in hearing feedback / suggestions on changes to make next year. The day after the National Tournament the rules committee will meet to try to lock down the rules for the next season. While I can't guarantee we'll adopt suggestions made here, I can at least promise we'll listen to them and consider them.

Food Science: Please keep it dairy. Everyone has already adapted for this rotation's dairy experiments, and to switch to baking would be hard on both the event proctors, team coaches, and students.