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The only time my writer uses dashes is when she is making a materials list and usually that isnt very often.

I've never done a materials list while writing, although one of my friends who also writes does. Do you find it helpful?

I tell my writer not to worry about doing a materials list. The only time one should be done is when you are done writing and looked over the writing a few times and found no problems and you have 5 minutes left to spare. It cant hurt then. I saw no difference in the results with the builder if there was a materials list and if there wasn't a materials list. I give my builder a ton of extra pieces so sometimes a materials list can be helpful but not needed since my writer makes it very clear what pieces you'll need. If you go into the room and see a huge structure sitting there then don't bother unless you have time at the end. If you see a small structure with things that you are good at then it might help to do one at the end. I told my writer to never do a materials list at the beginning because you may run out of time for doing what's important - writing about the structure. If you look at the image i put in the image gallery, that had a materials list to go with it because it was small and my writer is good at describing coin structures quickly.

At the very beginning my partner and I would put a materials list and the beginning, but as Pleiades says, we quickly discovered it was a bad idea. It uses precious time that you need to use writing about where to put the pieces.

Our reasoning was as follows: A materials list should theoretically not be necessary. In your description, you will mention all the pieces as you go along. Your builder will just use the pieces as he goes. So here's what I did. At the end of writing, if I finished completely describing everything I would add a little note at the end along the lines of: "I described everything, use only the pieces I mention. If they give you extras, don't worry about it. Good luck." And if you don't finish, and you know you won't finish, then stop writing 30 seconds or so early and write a note at the end that says something like "I could not finish writing, but the following pieces were used that I have not yet described:" and then list the rest so that your partner can at least guess where to put them and use the correct number of pieces. Both of these serve the same purpose as a materials list but doesn't waste the time at the beginning.

Ooh, that's a good idea. I'm not likely to write in competition this year- conflicts all the way up- but next year, maybe, and I'll pass that on to the writer for my team

Ok, i just got home from building day number two of my weekend, and it started with 25 minutes of writing a new WIDI structure for practice. I tried using numbered directions and it worked really well, if you are questioning your method, you may want to try numbers. i was extremely satisfied. my doer will be doing tomorrow so ill let ya know how he does.

wow... me and my partner aren't gonna do very well in states. In regionals we got 6th, but that's not gonna cut it when we're up against the best from every region. And states are next tuesday.

So i am curious what you regional or state comps used for materials in this event

For Colorado it was styrafoam, foam shaps. floral staples. a straw with a string through it, and a coffee stirer. Oh we also had a little white basket a a wooden rod

Our Regionals used those weird popsicle sticks with the notches in them (I don't know if anyone is familiar with them- they're like regular popsicle sticks, but there are a few rectangular notches on each side as well as some triangular notches that are spectacularly pointless because nothing can go in them, they won't stick). The models for the writers were glued together... the builders had a lot of trouble getting it to stay together. They basically had to balance the whole thing very carefully.

yeah i know what you're talking about. It is pretty hard to get those to stay together without glue. Last year at MA states they used coin connectors like the picture in the image gallery. After talking with the WIDI people from last year, the one they had was far more complex. I'll let you know saturday night what the structure was for states this year.