Scores

[Tendan]

Is that regions, states, or national intervals?

Regionals. With our breaking system though, it shold get simular results at state and nat intervals with enough testing. Hopefully

From a design standpoint, how are you able to get this accuracy this early in the season? Taking into account horizontal drift, as well as flooring and ramp inconsistencies (ramp can't be perfectly flush with the floor), it is almost impossible to get a perfect horizontal distance. Compared to other vehicle events such as EV or Mousetrap, the wheels are not being continuously driven throughout the duration of the run; rather, only the first propulsion from the ramp is given as the energy for the car. As such, drift occurs a lot more at farther distances, when the car slows down and the wheels do not skid as much.

Obviously different, but both my nats medalling buggies got consistently 5cm off, and never up to 1-2cm off every single run consistently. Our first buggy, which had to meet the centerline bonus, had to be carefully tuned in order to go perfectly straight.

Any advice about how to get this consistency would be appreciated.

Our cars, reliably within 5 cm, are pretty much just kept as simple as possible. We have no fancy release mechanism, just a string, no fancy braking system, just a wingnut, and the chassis is only PVC. Keeping it so simple allows us to have a new car and ramp done in under a week, so we can get right into testing and tuning to iron out any issues with drift, skid, etc. Albeit, it's doesn't look fancy or intimidating, but you get nothing for looking better at competition, only for performing better.

Also, I think you're making to big a deal out of minor factors like how flush the ramp is with the track and the car turning more as it slows down. The fore of which seems to account for no more than 1, occasionally 2 cm of L/R drift, and the latter of which seems to not be a problem altogether.

[sciolyperson1]

Regionals. With our breaking system though, it shold get simular results at state and nat intervals with enough testing. Hopefully

From a design standpoint, how are you able to get this accuracy this early in the season? Taking into account horizontal drift, as well as flooring and ramp inconsistencies (ramp can't be perfectly flush with the floor), it is almost impossible to get a perfect horizontal distance. Compared to other vehicle events such as EV or Mousetrap, the wheels are not being continuously driven throughout the duration of the run; rather, only the first propulsion from the ramp is given as the energy for the car. As such, drift occurs a lot more at farther distances, when the car slows down and the wheels do not skid as much.

Obviously different, but both my nats medalling buggies got consistently 5cm off, and never up to 1-2cm off every single run consistently. Our first buggy, which had to meet the centerline bonus, had to be carefully tuned in order to go perfectly straight.

Any advice about how to get this consistency would be appreciated.

Our cars, reliably within 5 cm, are pretty much just kept as simple as possible. We have no fancy release mechanism, just a string, no fancy braking system, just a wingnut, and the chassis is only PVC. Keeping it so simple allows us to have a new car and ramp done in under a week, so we can get right into testing and tuning to iron out any issues with drift, skid, etc. Albeit, it's doesn't look fancy or intimidating, but you get nothing for looking better at competition, only for performing better.

Also, I think you're making to big a deal out of minor factors like how flush the ramp is with the track and the car turning more as it slows down. The fore of which seems to account for no more than 1, occasionally 2 cm of L/R drift, and the latter of which seems to not be a problem altogether.

I agree with your point on performance, I tend to go the same route. Much of my car was actually reused from my 2018 buggy, and my ramp surface was actually found in the wood discard pile (got it for free ). At long as it works, its fine.

As for the ramp bump, if calibrated correctly, yes, it will go consistently straight (or consistently to one side), but it essentially is one more variable that you need to take into account, compared to mousetrap vehicles or buggies (which start flush on the floor). 1 or 2 cm of drift seems a bit small, especially since no tracks are perfect. In my experience, if you test on a different track (or even the same track backwards), you'll start finding small inconsistencies where the car would occasionally start drifting toward the right or the left. As for the drift when the car slows down, this was an issue with my last year buggy, curving a tiny bit less before going through the cans then curving a tiny bit more past the cans due to the car not being propelled. Although it may not seem like an issue, we tried to know what what tendencies the car had before inputting data so that we could adjust accordingly if needed at competition.

[kenneth.milarski21]

At the palatine invitational in IL, Munster Red got first overall with a score of around 20. It was a pretty spot on run but their vehicle seemed very bent

[pikachu4919]

At the palatine invitational in IL, Munster Red got first overall with a score of around 20. It was a pretty spot on run but their vehicle seemed very "jank". It was bent. I will see if I can attach my video I got.

I had to remove your post with the YouTube link, but please do not post videos of teams’ devices that are not your own anywhere online. The tournament director and/or event supervisor should’ve not allowed you to even take videos of teams other than your own in the first place, and even if they don’t disallow it (which really shouldn’t happen), you should still ask permission of that team before doing anything with content of their stuff. Other tournament directors and/or event supervisors at future tournaments you go to could disqualify you or your team for capturing content of teams other than your own without their permission (I know windu34 certainly would, last year he explicitly told that to the MIT invite mission possible spectators). Just...either don’t do that again (you might be disallowed from doing that in the first place if the event supervisor is doing their job effectively) or if you REALLY want to and it’s not being disallowed, ask the team’s permission for both taking pics or video AND for uploading it publicly.

[Vortexx2]

At the palatine invitational in IL, Munster Red got first overall with a score of around 20. It was a pretty spot on run but their vehicle seemed very "jank". It was bent. I will see if I can attach my video I got.

Guess I'll take that as a compliment

[kenneth.milarski21]

I didnt mean jank. It was a solid run, it just seemed as if your axle was bent

[Vortexx2]

I didnt mean jank. It was a solid run, it just seemed as if your axle was bent

Lol sometimes its hard to tell when someone is joking over text. My car WAS pretty janky & bent. To not derail this thread too much, I'll add the rest of my car info here:
Points: 18-20? Time: ~4:75 Distance: ~7.5 cm off with a target of 10m.

[Raesow]

The other day, I had the best run I've ever had. Time of about 3.5 seconds, distance of about 10.0cm. I was wondeirng how competetive this score would be (about 23.5) at a regional/invitational level. Obviously this can and will be improved with the 2 months of testing time I have until my regional, but the invitational is coming up in less than a month. Just curious to hear some input from others doing the same event.

[Tendan]

The other day, I had the best run I've ever had. Time of about 3.5 seconds, distance of about 10.0cm. I was wondeirng how competetive this score would be (about 23.5) at a regional/invitational level. Obviously this can and will be improved with the 2 months of testing time I have until my regional, but the invitational is coming up in less than a month. Just curious to hear some input from others doing the same event.

If you wouldn't mind me asking, what state are you in and what invitational are you referencing? I ask because what constitutes a competitive score can vary quite a lot depending on the state (for regionals) or the invitational you are competing in. I would say a 23.5 is probably a medaling score at most invitationals, so long as there aren't several powerhouse schools. That being said, I have no idea what scores are like outside the Northeast.

[Tendan]

At our latest competition (LISO) I got a time of 3.31 seconds and was 2.9 cm off-target for a score of 9.11. If you don't mind sharing scores, how would a score like that stack up nationally right now?