Wind Power B/C

[jgrischow1]

Hello,

At a recent invitational, the event supervisor's test stand collapsed while my blade assembly device was being tested. As a result, my blade assembly device broke as the event supervisor's test stand broke. It was not my fault, and the event supervisor also claimed responsibility for the incident. Their setup broke while my device was being tested. In such an event, what compensation should be given to the student? How should the event supervisor ensure that the competition is fair for the student whose device broke even though it was not their fault? What is the course of action to be taken if it's the event supervisor's fault that a student's device broke?

I'm sorry this happened to you. I would assume the event was trialed and not counted in the final standings. Was this the case?

[knightmoves]

Hello,

At a recent invitational, the event supervisor's test stand collapsed while my blade assembly device was being tested. As a result, my blade assembly device broke as the event supervisor's test stand broke. It was not my fault, and the event supervisor also claimed responsibility for the incident. Their setup broke while my device was being tested. In such an event, what compensation should be given to the student? How should the event supervisor ensure that the competition is fair for the student whose device broke even though it was not their fault? What is the course of action to be taken if it's the event supervisor's fault that a student's device broke?

That sucks. Sorry that happened to you - it's frustrating when you put a load of work in to a device, and then something happens through no fault of your own.

Event Supervisors are often talented volunteers, but they aren't magic. It is not possible for an Event Supervisor to reverse the flow of time and put things right.

So what would be reasonable in this case? This is an invitational, which is primarily a learning experience and a practice. You want to produce an outcome which is fair to you - the student who has suffered because of an unexpected failure in the event supervisor's equipment - but also fair to all the other students, some of whom will have built and tested good devices at the competition, and some who will have had no device at all.

So my first question is whether it was feasible for you to patch your blade assembly together and run it in some reasonable way. If so, then I would think it reasonable to offer you the opportunity to repair your device during the day, and return at the end of the day to test your device. That's as close as the ES can get to "putting things right".

If your device was broken beyond repair, there's nothing the ES can reasonably do here.

As jgrischow1 suggests, you probably have to count the event as a trial and not have it contribute to the overall results, but there's no reasonable way to restore equity to you. It is not reasonable to throw out all of the device tests: it's not fair to privilege the other competitors who have not built a device, or who built a bad device, over those who built a good device.

You can clearly score the chart score for whatever charts you submitted. The question that remains is what score, if any, to allocate to your device that was a victim of the accidental self-destruction of the test apparatus. Possible options are either you score zero (because you don't have a device), or you get allocated a score (perhaps an average). The latter is pretty hard to justify, although I could imagine a guilty-feeling ES inventing it as a policy on the spur of the moment.

[wsgluh]

Hello,

At a recent invitational, the event supervisor's test stand collapsed while my blade assembly device was being tested. As a result, my blade assembly device broke as the event supervisor's test stand broke. It was not my fault, and the event supervisor also claimed responsibility for the incident. Their setup broke while my device was being tested. In such an event, what compensation should be given to the student? How should the event supervisor ensure that the competition is fair for the student whose device broke even though it was not their fault? What is the course of action to be taken if it's the event supervisor's fault that a student's device broke?

That sucks. Sorry that happened to you - it's frustrating when you put a load of work in to a device, and then something happens through no fault of your own.

Event Supervisors are often talented volunteers, but they aren't magic. It is not possible for an Event Supervisor to reverse the flow of time and put things right.

So what would be reasonable in this case? This is an invitational, which is primarily a learning experience and a practice. You want to produce an outcome which is fair to you - the student who has suffered because of an unexpected failure in the event supervisor's equipment - but also fair to all the other students, some of whom will have built and tested good devices at the competition, and some who will have had no device at all.

So my first question is whether it was feasible for you to patch your blade assembly together and run it in some reasonable way. If so, then I would think it reasonable to offer you the opportunity to repair your device during the day, and return at the end of the day to test your device. That's as close as the ES can get to "putting things right".

If your device was broken beyond repair, there's nothing the ES can reasonably do here.

As jgrischow1 suggests, you probably have to count the event as a trial and not have it contribute to the overall results, but there's no reasonable way to restore equity to you. It is not reasonable to throw out all of the device tests: it's not fair to privilege the other competitors who have not built a device, or who built a bad device, over those who built a good device.

You can clearly score the chart score for whatever charts you submitted. The question that remains is what score, if any, to allocate to your device that was a victim of the accidental self-destruction of the test apparatus. Possible options are either you score zero (because you don't have a device), or you get allocated a score (perhaps an average). The latter is pretty hard to justify, although I could imagine a guilty-feeling ES inventing it as a policy on the spur of the moment.

Hello,

At a recent invitational, the event supervisor's test stand collapsed while my blade assembly device was being tested. As a result, my blade assembly device broke as the event supervisor's test stand broke. It was not my fault, and the event supervisor also claimed responsibility for the incident. Their setup broke while my device was being tested. In such an event, what compensation should be given to the student? How should the event supervisor ensure that the competition is fair for the student whose device broke even though it was not their fault? What is the course of action to be taken if it's the event supervisor's fault that a student's device broke?

I'm sorry this happened to you. I would assume the event was trialed and not counted in the final standings. Was this the case?

The final outcome of the incident: Luckily, the ES got a voltage reading before the incident occurred. That voltage reading was used when determining my placement. I still placed 2nd at the competition. I'm not sure if my blade assembly device every achieved it's maximum voltage, but I'm grateful that the ES got a voltage reading to use for scoring. I like the idea of allowing the student to repair their blade assembly device if possible.

[ASingh]

I have a setup for practice where I don’t have a resistor and measure the voltage by directly hooking the generator to a multimeter. Where can I buy resistors? (I miss RadioShack )

During practice the device always self started at low speed. During a competition, it did not start at low speed. Could the missing resistor in my setup cause that? Or is it more likely differences in fan speed.

[lemmons]

I have a setup for practice where I don’t have a resistor and measure the voltage by directly hooking the generator to a multimeter. Where can I buy resistors? (I miss RadioShack )

During practice the device always self started at low speed. During a competition, it did not start at low speed. Could the missing resistor in my setup cause that? Or is it more likely differences in fan speed.

The missing resistor will absolutely cause that difference in behavior. Since generators/motors convert between physical motion and electricity, you can think of the electrical resistor as providing physical resistance to motion. You'll find tons of places to buy resistors online including Amazon if you google it.

[PHXcoach]

I have a setup for practice where I don’t have a resistor and measure the voltage by directly hooking the generator to a multimeter. Where can I buy resistors? (I miss RadioShack )

During practice the device always self started at low speed. During a competition, it did not start at low speed. Could the missing resistor in my setup cause that? Or is it more likely differences in fan speed.

The resistor will provide a load to the DC motor, but if the blade is not turning then there is no voltage from the motor and therefore no load, so while this will affect the voltage that you get it probably won't change the startup behavior. Differences in the air speed and the DC motor are more likely your issue.

The CD/DVD motors are small so they can only capture a small percentage of the energy in the air flow from the fan. As a result the resistor will change the measured voltage but it won't have much impact on the maximum rotational speed of the blade.

[PHXcoach]

I have a setup for practice where I don’t have a resistor and measure the voltage by directly hooking the generator to a multimeter. Where can I buy resistors? (I miss RadioShack )

During practice the device always self started at low speed. During a competition, it did not start at low speed. Could the missing resistor in my setup cause that? Or is it more likely differences in fan speed.

The resistor will provide a load to the DC motor, but if the blade is not turning then there is no voltage from the motor and therefore no load, so while this will affect the voltage that you get it probably won't change the startup behavior. Differences in the air speed and the DC motor are more likely your issue.

The CD/DVD motors are small so they can only capture a small percentage of the energy in the air flow from the fan. As a result the resistor will change the measured voltage but it won't have much impact on the maximum rotational speed of the blade.

[drcubbin]

Hello,

At a recent invitational, the event supervisor's test stand collapsed while my blade assembly device was being tested. As a result, my blade assembly device broke as the event supervisor's test stand broke. It was not my fault, and the event supervisor also claimed responsibility for the incident. Their setup broke while my device was being tested. In such an event, what compensation should be given to the student? How should the event supervisor ensure that the competition is fair for the student whose device broke even though it was not their fault? What is the course of action to be taken if it's the event supervisor's fault that a student's device broke?

That sucks. Sorry that happened to you - it's frustrating when you put a load of work in to a device, and then something happens through no fault of your own.

Event Supervisors are often talented volunteers, but they aren't magic. It is not possible for an Event Supervisor to reverse the flow of time and put things right.

So what would be reasonable in this case? This is an invitational, which is primarily a learning experience and a practice. You want to produce an outcome which is fair to you - the student who has suffered because of an unexpected failure in the event supervisor's equipment - but also fair to all the other students, some of whom will have built and tested good devices at the competition, and some who will have had no device at all.

So my first question is whether it was feasible for you to patch your blade assembly together and run it in some reasonable way. If so, then I would think it reasonable to offer you the opportunity to repair your device during the day, and return at the end of the day to test your device. That's as close as the ES can get to "putting things right".

If your device was broken beyond repair, there's nothing the ES can reasonably do here.

As jgrischow1 suggests, you probably have to count the event as a trial and not have it contribute to the overall results, but there's no reasonable way to restore equity to you. It is not reasonable to throw out all of the device tests: it's not fair to privilege the other competitors who have not built a device, or who built a bad device, over those who built a good device.

You can clearly score the chart score for whatever charts you submitted. The question that remains is what score, if any, to allocate to your device that was a victim of the accidental self-destruction of the test apparatus. Possible options are either you score zero (because you don't have a device), or you get allocated a score (perhaps an average). The latter is pretty hard to justify, although I could imagine a guilty-feeling ES inventing it as a policy on the spur of the moment.

Hello,

At a recent invitational, the event supervisor's test stand collapsed while my blade assembly device was being tested. As a result, my blade assembly device broke as the event supervisor's test stand broke. It was not my fault, and the event supervisor also claimed responsibility for the incident. Their setup broke while my device was being tested. In such an event, what compensation should be given to the student? How should the event supervisor ensure that the competition is fair for the student whose device broke even though it was not their fault? What is the course of action to be taken if it's the event supervisor's fault that a student's device broke?

I'm sorry this happened to you. I would assume the event was trialed and not counted in the final standings. Was this the case?

The final outcome of the incident: Luckily, the ES got a voltage reading before the incident occurred. That voltage reading was used when determining my placement. I still placed 2nd at the competition. I'm not sure if my blade assembly device every achieved it's maximum voltage, but I'm grateful that the ES got a voltage reading to use for scoring. I like the idea of allowing the student to repair their blade assembly device if possible.

Just out of curiosity, was this at Cornell? The same thing happened to our team. The device holding the CD motor did not hold tight enough and the fan "sagged" down, hit the ring stand and the fan stopped. The event was not trialed. They also told our team it was their responsibility to "adjust" the device - but I wasn't aware competitors are allowed to manipulate the testing device. We love Cornell, and things do happen.

[drcubbin]

I supervised this event many years ago and I distinctly remember we needed to use a box fan. Recently at States and at an earlier Invitational the teams said they were not using box fans. We're going to Nationals, so can we expect the Supervisor to be using a box fan? That is what we are practicing with and hopefully that is what they will have.

[knightmoves]

Rule 6b requires the ES to provide "one or two 20" multispeed box fan(s)". An ES should not provide any other kind of fan, or a fan of a different size.

Sometimes an ES doesn't read the rules, and just does something they think is reasonable. Often when this happens, it isn't reasonable.