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Re: Scioly.org Monthly Event Challenges: Future Modifications

Posted: February 13th, 2023, 9:52 pm
by RasmitDevkota
SilverBreeze wrote: February 13th, 2023, 6:20 pm I’d love to see SMEC come back. I think it’d also help to have SMEC “quizzes” that are 15-25 min long, so that SMEC writers don’t have to commit to a full test in one month. This also makes it easier to get a full test, since actively finding a co-writer can be difficult. This way, people who only have time to write half a test can see a SMEC quiz scheduled and offer to add more questions. I agree a longer cycle would also help increase people willing to run events.
Do you guys think having writers assigned months in advance would be a good solution? The biggest benefit is "fuller" tests and more frequent events, with the downside of not being able to make changes to events for the next month as they would already be WIP or ready, possibly as well as more difficulty finding writers for popular events due to the commitment. I think it does come down to your priorities/interests and generally what you want SMEC to be - would you want more frequent but not necessarily the most popular events or less frequent but more thought-out and generally-popular events? The good thing is this can always be changed based on interest.
pumptato-cat wrote: February 13th, 2023, 9:19 pm Random thought, but have build events ever been run? I wonder if having a miniature version of current builds, or maybe something new such as ornithopter might be fun. I can't think of any build events with easily accessible materials though, so this is probably not the best idea.
Events like Digital Structures were run - may be interesting to see what sort of events can be created or modified to be done virtually. Only difficulty with builds is that they tend to be harder to grade so it would require more committed graders, without the help of "automatic" scoring like how SkyCiv was able to calculate your Boomilever's efficiency. The good thing with it being virtual is that computer science events are much more feasible, depending on everyone's interest in any possible ones.

Re: Scioly.org Monthly Event Challenges: Future Modifications

Posted: March 24th, 2023, 5:34 pm
by onshape
Just found out about SMEC and it seems like a great idea. We should totally bring it back, given that it is feasible. It would be a great way to practice events (uhh many people on scioly.org are a lot more competitive than I am) and stay in the loop of SciOly. Also it does seem like a good way to practice build events like Boomilever/Bridge/Tower and a good way to try different CAD software from Onshape RasmitDevkota!. Like pumptato-cat said, a great way to keep the community engaged and possibly also keeping the forums alive!

SilverBreeze, SMEC "quizzes" might be nice for both the writers and the takers so the test-taking can be less of a time-commitment.

And I think I might be able to frequent Forestry once I get really good at it!

Re: Scioly.org Monthly Event Challenges: Future Modifications

Posted: March 25th, 2023, 11:43 am
by pumptato-cat
If there's any build events, I'll be there ;)
I wonder if SMEC Flight would be possible, but building tiny living-room flyers instead? (Hip Pocket Aero has more info on this) They can probably be built from spare balsa in Bridge or Flight.
Holding some sort of virtual meet to talk about builds might also be fun--sharing ideas or something. I'm getting rather off-topic, though. Oops...
I feel like we'd get more participation if we included more varieties of events, instead of just study ones. I for one wouldn't participate unless it was one of my events, which unfortunately are all builds/inquiry.

Re: Scioly.org Monthly Event Challenges: Future Modifications

Posted: March 25th, 2023, 2:42 pm
by onshape
Inquiry should be fine - Codebusters, Fermi, WICI, Experiment and Data Analysis can all be done online as they have before. As for builds, the only ones I'm aware of that the builds that have been done online are Digital Structures and Detector Design. For Flight/Scrambler, I think it would be fun to test your own devices at home and compare scores (though there's room for bias here.) This is a lot of CAD (but I like onshape so it doesn't matter) but what if you were supposed to make CAD planes/scramblers and then we could rate one another's based off of design? I actually quite like your idea on sharing builds virtually. One thing I'm also wondering about the labs - if there's one thing I hate more than labs, it's virtual labs. (for all the lab people out here)

Re: Scioly.org Monthly Event Challenges: Future Modifications

Posted: March 25th, 2023, 3:13 pm
by RasmitDevkota
There's no restriction forcing SMEC to continue how it was before, but when it was run before, most events were individual (mostly unofficial!) study events, with the exception of events like Digital Structures (on SkyCiv, though I doubt nearly as many teams still have a subscription for that) and Algorithms and Heuristics (on Codeforces). As this is not an invitational, there isn't any obligation to run any events or do things any particular way, the goal when it was previously run was more to provide a fun experience than a regular competition experience for preparation (hence untraditional open-internet events), though users can always take on the events more competitively or casually.

Re: Scioly.org Monthly Event Challenges: Future Modifications

Posted: March 26th, 2023, 7:27 am
by knightmoves
onshape wrote: March 25th, 2023, 2:42 pm Inquiry should be fine - Codebusters, Fermi, WICI, Experiment and Data Analysis can all be done online as they have before. As for builds, the only ones I'm aware of that the builds that have been done online are Digital Structures and Detector Design. For Flight/Scrambler, I think it would be fun to test your own devices at home and compare scores (though there's room for bias here.) This is a lot of CAD (but I like onshape so it doesn't matter) but what if you were supposed to make CAD planes/scramblers and then we could rate one another's based off of design? I actually quite like your idea on sharing builds virtually. One thing I'm also wondering about the labs - if there's one thing I hate more than labs, it's virtual labs. (for all the lab people out here)
Most people don't have a long enough room at home to test Scrambler, and while you could scale everything down to a thing that would go maybe 3m on a kitchen floor, doing that takes you in to an area where precision machining has a dramatic advantage over hand tools.