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Your safety towers looks very well made LKN. Considering that its function is to hold up the 15kg if a tower breaks though, I don't think you have to worry that much about how to improve the design. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

My partner and I made a safety tower over the break too. We weren't exactly sure how to connect the legs in a tripod structure at the top, so we built a rectangular prism instead. It's basically a glorified bar stool with a hook and chain. I'll upload that to the gallery soon. Would you mind giving a quick run down on how you connected them at the top? It looked like Balsa Man's original tower had them interlocking somehow...

Two more quick things I noticed. I like how you just marked out the 20x20 square and then drilled a hole down the center. It took us forever to get that square perfectly cut. I guess there's no need to do that unless you're running the tower event right? Lastly, how is your bucket attached to the chain? We found that the plastic cylinder always gets in the way and is prone to slipping around when pouring, so we broke it off and hot glued our carabiner/chain to the metal handle. Have you encountered any issues with that yet?

Hey everyone, I was wondering what efficiencies you think will get medals in states or even win states this year (especially for illinois). i can guarantee you that I am 99% sure that my school won't be making it to states as it is our first year, but I am really competitive and have some of the best schools in my regional. I would like to maybe claim a first in regionals so what are some efficiencies you see being winning state such as illinois? I have been getting around 55-56

thsom wrote:Hey everyone, I was wondering what efficiencies you think will get medals in states or even win states this year (especially for illinois). i can guarantee you that I am 99% sure that my school won't be making it to states as it is our first year, but I am really competitive and have some of the best schools in my regional. I would like to maybe claim a first in regionals so what are some efficiencies you see being winning state such as illinois? I have been getting around 55-56

55 wont do it. I'm also from IL and the first invite of the year (Hinsdale South) I got 65 and didnt place. It was graded on a scale of everyone so no differentiation of JV and V so the 3 medals given were purely the top 3 regardless of deviation.
In terms of 'hardest' regional, i would attribute that to CLC since we have Stevenson and New Trier Freshman campus. [sorry, not really appropriate for this forum]
Keep working on it

Looking for some opinons here... last year at a state competition I saw a team that was loading the sand and the tower was approaching failure because it was starting to lean. The chain made contact to one side of the chimney and the event super stopped the team from loading anymore even though the tower had yet failed. The chain had not made contact to the test stand. I believe they protested because the rules did not support the stopping, but were overuled. This year in the rules 5.J doesn't seem to support that stoppage. Any thoughts?

mrsteven wrote:

thsom wrote:Hey everyone, I was wondering what efficiencies you think will get medals in states or even win states this year (especially for illinois). i can guarantee you that I am 99% sure that my school won't be making it to states as it is our first year, but I am really competitive and have some of the best schools in my regional. I would like to maybe claim a first in regionals so what are some efficiencies you see being winning state such as illinois? I have been getting around 55-56

55 wont do it. I'm also from IL and the first invite of the year (Hinsdale South) I got 65 and didnt place. It was graded on a scale of everyone so no differentiation of JV and V so the 3 medals given were purely the top 3 regardless of deviation.
In terms of 'hardest' regional, i would attribute that to CLC since we have Stevenson and New Trier Freshman campus. [sorry, not really appropriate for this forum]
Keep working on it

Ok thankyou so much! Now I know this isn't the right forum (thanks for pointing that out) but do you think a score of 70-80 could place in regionals? I am in the COD regional. I knowI said I have competitive teams but I am basing this solely on their education system and if they have gone to state before so they might not be THAT competitive. The schools are:
Naperville Central
Naperville North
Glenbard South
Glenbard East
Glenbard West
Glenbard North
Hinsdale South
Hinsdale Central
York
James B. Conant
JA M Publishers Home School
Benet
St. Charles East My school
Wendell Phillips
Walter Payton
Lake Park
Willowbrook
so as i said an efficiency of 70-80 leaning more towards 75-80. Would that cut it?

I'll be honest with you, thats not really a number you can just guess what will win. It all depends on the individual people who are competing this year and how much effort they put into it. Just b/c one team won last year doesn't mean they will this year bc others might learn new techniques or the old person graduated. Furthermore, I haven't done towers/bridges long enough to make a good estimation, but it really depends on improvement.
Most teams for invites aren't as competitive builders and bring out the good stuff at regionals and states since those are what really matter, so without my own knowledge and the lack of posting of scores after engineering events (which annoys me a bit) I cannot really say. But given that my 65 didn't even place at the FIRST invite, I wouldnt think that 70 would nearly cut it after months of improvement.

BTW, I've seen MANY first year teams destroy veteran teams b/c they CARE and actually STUDY. Our state bid usually occurs because we have 4-5 talented kids that outweigh the others who don't study or prep at all. So if you guys all study and do well I've got no doubt you can make it

Thanks and thanks also to everyone else who has helped me!

Another question (I am totally lost as it is my first year! ). Are there any rules about loading because I saw a video that the middle school coach took last year of a high school team that loaded the tower slowly and then quickly gradually moved into full speed pouring until all of the load fell out and the tower snapped right at about 14.5 kg. I think this was because they loaded the tower so quickly or it wouldn't have held all of the load. Is this legal? Because if it is you can make lighter towers to hold less but when you test them make them hold almost all and have a higher efficiency.

thsom wrote:Another question (I am totally lost as it is my first year! ). Are there any rules about loading because I saw a video that the middle school coach took last year of a high school team that loaded the tower slowly and then quickly gradually moved into full speed pouring until all of the load fell out and the tower snapped right at about 14.5 kg. I think this was because they loaded the tower so quickly or it wouldn't have held all of the load. Is this legal? Because if it is you can make lighter towers to hold less but when you test them make them hold almost all and have a higher efficiency.

There are no rules about loading. We did the same thing last year...only our tower didn't break. But...you have to load evenly. However, there are no rules on loading. Just, you know, if you cheat, the judge is allowed to scoop back out approximately what extra you poured in. That's something our coach drilled into us. However...it is perfectly allowed.

foreverphysics wrote: the judge is allowed to scoop back out approximately what extra you poured in.

but they are so nice and usually make sure they take out a little more than that.
Why would that be illegal?