Best of Nationals 2014

[foreverphysics]

But some proctors took pictures of the devices, I know the proctor took a picture of Wheeled devices, but I have no idea why..

This is usually for the Science Olympiad Summer Institute for the coaches. It's also on the released CDs after Nats, along with the tests.

[Bazinga+]

My wheeled vehicle got 34th place at nats. I dont know if we could put that as 'best of nats'... but it just messed up at nats. It probably would have gotten top ten if it didnt screw up. We got scores of -10 to -15 sometimes with a speed of 1 sec

[zyzzyva980]

Even if your devices didn't make top 10, we encourage you to upload them to the Image Gallery anyway; every little bit helps.

[humanbeingofearth548]

My wheeled vehicle got 34th place at nats. I dont know if we could put that as 'best of nats'... but it just messed up at nats. It probably would have gotten top ten if it didnt screw up. We got scores of -10 to -15 sometimes with a speed of 1 sec

Woah..THAT FAST! AND THAT SMALL OF A SCORE! The highest I've ever gotten was probably -7...without messing up anything at all..(But my partner and I usually ALWAYS mess up SOMETHING)

[Bazinga+]

My wheeled vehicle got 34th place at nats. I dont know if we could put that as 'best of nats'... but it just messed up at nats. It probably would have gotten top ten if it didnt screw up. We got scores of -10 to -15 sometimes with a speed of 1 sec

Woah..THAT FAST! AND THAT SMALL OF A SCORE! The highest I've ever gotten was probably -7...without messing up anything at all..(But my partner and I usually ALWAYS mess up SOMETHING)

yeah, same here. We screw up all the time... and that happened at nationals unfortunately. The bolt in our breaking system went loose and we only noticed before the second run but we didnt have time to fix it. The vehicle still stopped, but the calibration shifted with the bolt so the second run was like 20 cm off (the first was like 30...)

[HeavyHitter406]

My wheeled vehicle got 34th place at nats. I dont know if we could put that as 'best of nats'... but it just messed up at nats. It probably would have gotten top ten if it didnt screw up. We got scores of -10 to -15 sometimes with a speed of 1 sec

Woah..THAT FAST! AND THAT SMALL OF A SCORE! The highest I've ever gotten was probably -7...without messing up anything at all..(But my partner and I usually ALWAYS mess up SOMETHING)

yeah, same here. We screw up all the time... and that happened at nationals unfortunately. The bolt in our breaking system went loose and we only noticed before the second run but we didnt have time to fix it. The vehicle still stopped, but the calibration shifted with the bolt so the second run was like 20 cm off (the first was like 30...)

But still...1 second???? We thought our car was really fast and it's best was 1.6 seconds...But I know how you feel about your car, as our car failed at every competition before Nationals when it had been running fairly well before each competition. If your best was -10 to -15 that would certainly get top 3 at Nats. The problem with all the builds is that they are all luck, basically. The best car could have a bad day and the worst car could go straight for the first time ever....Ah well. Its not a good measurement of what the best car was. I feel ya about your car.

[Bazinga+]

Woah..THAT FAST! AND THAT SMALL OF A SCORE! The highest I've ever gotten was probably -7...without messing up anything at all..(But my partner and I usually ALWAYS mess up SOMETHING)

yeah, same here. We screw up all the time... and that happened at nationals unfortunately. The bolt in our breaking system went loose and we only noticed before the second run but we didnt have time to fix it. The vehicle still stopped, but the calibration shifted with the bolt so the second run was like 20 cm off (the first was like 30...)

But still...1 second???? We thought our car was really fast and it's best was 1.6 seconds...But I know how you feel about your car, as our car failed at every competition before Nationals when it had been running fairly well before each competition. If your best was -10 to -15 that would certainly get top 3 at Nats. The problem with all the builds is that they are all luck, basically. The best car could have a bad day and the worst car could go straight for the first time ever....Ah well. Its not a good measurement of what the best car was. I feel ya about your car.

yeah our car was all luck. This year i learned that you cannot make your vehicle too fast, or else there wont be enough traction to stop consistently.

[HeavyHitter406]

Agreed about the traction. Our braking was so inconsistent this year. The same axle rotation would sometimes be 20 cm over or 40 cm under. It's hard to know where to draw the line where you don't want your car to go too fast...and there's no real way to find out except tons of practice.

[humanbeingofearth548]

Wait...shhouldn't we be posting this type of stuff in the Wheeled Vehicle page? Not thhe Best of Nationals 2014 page?

[Bazinga+]

Okay we can move there.