Junkyard Mystery Material?

[physicsphan]

"Mystery Material(s) must remain undamaged during construction and running of the device so they may be re-used by another Team."
Whether or not you consider the Mystery Material a Supplied Material (as I do) or not since it says that the Mystery Object must remain undamaged a judge could easily decide that you putting tape on the object will chnage the object. Thus they would not be able to make sure the object was exactly the same for each group. Either way since the Supervisor can make their Final Directions whatever they like you should just be prepared to not tape the object or do any of those things that are not allowed for Supplied Materials.

[fleet130]

judge could easily decide that you putting tape on the object will chnage the object.

Isn't that stretching things quite a bit as long as the tape can be removed.

You are always at the mercy of the event supervisor at your tournament. It's impossible to predict how they might interpret any given paragraph without asking them. I have observed cases where an event supervisor changed their interpretation and penalized a team for something they had previously said was OK.

If you are limited by any possible interpretation a judge may make, it could be very difficult to do anything. For the Mystery Material to be "Significantly incorporated" into the device almost dictates that some method of attachment be allowed. The only requirement is that the Mystery material remain "undamaged". This, of course is open to interpretations is any other language in the rules.

Again: There is no way of knowing how it will be interpreted without asking the event supervisor at your tournament.

[Odles]

We just had CT states yesterday. The Mystery Material was a popsicle stick. We taped it into our device (as did many other teams) and the judges did not seem to care.

For what it's worth.

[jazzy009]

OH oh oh! we got an orange golf tee! i dont think the color matters...
taping was not allowed

[vofbassist]

Our judges didn't mind that we taped it to our device.

[boomtech]

We got a coat hanger.