Texas 2013

jlee7x2
Member
Member
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 10:45 pm
Division: C
State: TX
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Texas 2013

Post by jlee7x2 »

2win wrote:
GeoChamp96 wrote:It might be just me, but this might have been the least-organized State competition in a while.
I wholeheartedly agree.

And like, this is minor in comparison to the wind problem for Storm the Castle, but one of their weights was actually >15cm tall, which kind of screwed my team over because the guys weren't prepared for that (although it was kind of the guys' fault for not leaving extra space.) But when we went to ask to measure the weight's height, the proctor took it and put it in the 15cm cube... diagonally... Not saying he was wrong and we were right, but really, that was just super cheesy.

And div. B should look out for Cinco, they look really good right now.
I saw that and I agree, that was pretty messed up what they did - it's their fault for not using the correct size hook as shown on the scioly tutorial for making a CW. :?

I also don't think they enforced the energy rule that they clarified on the website well at all either. They looked to see if the arm was not moving while in the LOCKED POSITION. Although my arm was energy balanced slightly favoring the backside, it could have been so frontloaded with mass and they wouldn't have even noticed. The dude just said, "i could tell just by looking that your arm was balanced", which doesn't make sense at all. I wonder if the other FATs and got the energy rule checked properly... Also, that wind was so variable throughout the day - at times it would favor teams at variable magnitudes, and it would also change directions, screwing up calibrations and predictions everywhere. I asked the event coordinator why in the world they would hold it outside with such gusts, and he said some team told them that they would fire 30m, but I'm pretty sure that didn't happen. I suggested that they just lower the CW to make everyone fire shorter distances so that they could hold the event inside, but they said that would be impossible. :|

Also, apparently gravity vehicle had a bunch of rules broken/teams that got tier 2'd who shouldn't have. Maglev vehicles got time to accelerate before the photogate, favoring teams with longer tracks, which isn't supposed to happen.

With boomilever, I also tested on the far right station - I meticulously made mine so it was balanced and everything was touching the wall at the starting position, but apparently my compression member was about half a centimeter away from the wall at that station, meaning that when weight was applied at the distal end, the compression members angled upwards, potentially causing it to break much earlier than expected. Thankfully, I caught it before hand and loosened the bolt, increasing the stress on the base and tensions members to make a right angle compression. Idk, that could have just been a design flaw or something wrong with my testing station I have at home, but since others are bringing it up too.. :roll:

Lastly, that small 16ft room for elastic launched glider was a real problem for a lot of teams; hugely different from what they had at regionals and invitationals which were typically held in gyms.

....really janky building event friday, but I guess with a brand new venue, some wrinkles just need to be ironed as the years go on.
merp.
User avatar
sofan
Member
Member
Posts: 92
Joined: Mon Nov 05, 2012 6:24 pm
Division: B
State: TX
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Texas 2013

Post by sofan »

GeoChamp96 wrote:
I didnt hear about picture this using words out of an english dictionary. But, the words were insane. Nobody on our team knew the words. If there is anyone from woodcreek that would like to share the amount of words the got correctly,I would apprectate it. Others can also share their stressful experience at state doing pic this. Thanks to everyone who shares![/quote]

I could be wrong since I'm Division C and have never done Picture This, but I seem to recall hearing our Division B team for that event saying that they got 7 words, and they ended up getting 4th place. I also heard that a lot of teams were getting something like 3 words.[/quote]
Im guessing your at austin area homeschoolers? Yall did really good for both B and C. seven was very good for those insane words. (Ok, i confess, we were one of the 3 word teams)
New school year! New scioly season! Another year to do something great!

2013 galveston regionals:
rotor: 3rd
pic: 2nd(Texas event)
overall:3rd
2013 state:
rotor:4th
overall: 12th :I
User avatar
sofan
Member
Member
Posts: 92
Joined: Mon Nov 05, 2012 6:24 pm
Division: B
State: TX
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Texas 2013

Post by sofan »

Also, the rotor drop was really short. It looked like no more than 6 m. Was thinking about 8-10m.
New school year! New scioly season! Another year to do something great!

2013 galveston regionals:
rotor: 3rd
pic: 2nd(Texas event)
overall:3rd
2013 state:
rotor:4th
overall: 12th :I
GeoChamp96
Member
Member
Posts: 44
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 7:38 pm
Division: C
State: TX
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Texas 2013

Post by GeoChamp96 »

sofan wrote:
GeoChamp96 wrote:
I didnt hear about picture this using words out of an english dictionary. But, the words were insane. Nobody on our team knew the words. If there is anyone from woodcreek that would like to share the amount of words the got correctly,I would apprectate it. Others can also share their stressful experience at state doing pic this. Thanks to everyone who shares!
I could be wrong since I'm Division C and have never done Picture This, but I seem to recall hearing our Division B team for that event saying that they got 7 words, and they ended up getting 4th place. I also heard that a lot of teams were getting something like 3 words.[/quote]
Im guessing your at austin area homeschoolers? Yall did really good for both B and C. seven was very good for those insane words. (Ok, i confess, we were one of the 3 word teams)[/quote]

Thanks! Our Division B Team lost pretty much all of its 8th grade members from last year, so they were pretty much trying to do the best we could. We were just happy to get 6th place at State and finally come in first at a Regional competition.

As for our Division C Team, it's only our second year, so we were pretty happy with 11th. I actually did some number-crunching afterward because there were a few fluke events that we completely failed at that we really shouldn't have (e.g. two last places in Boomilever [which suffered from the setup I mentioned earlier] and Anatomy/Physiology [which I think we may have forgotten to write our team name on]), and if those events (plus a few others) had gone the way they were supposed to, we would have ended somewhere around 6th behind Langham Creek. Plus, the fact that we were able to contend with two veteran teams at Regionals gives us a lot of hope for the future. Next year will be the first year we have actual tryouts instead of taking whoever we can find, so we're hoping to do as well as our Division B Team has done in the past.

I wish they were able to get the event rules out sooner... I'd love to start working on my events over the summer. Problem is, they're all new or likely to change next year...
User avatar
sofan
Member
Member
Posts: 92
Joined: Mon Nov 05, 2012 6:24 pm
Division: B
State: TX
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Texas 2013

Post by sofan »

http://www.soinc.org/sites/default/file ... -14-13.doc
it lists the possible events.
then go to soinc.org and find the event.
New school year! New scioly season! Another year to do something great!

2013 galveston regionals:
rotor: 3rd
pic: 2nd(Texas event)
overall:3rd
2013 state:
rotor:4th
overall: 12th :I
GeoChamp96
Member
Member
Posts: 44
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 7:38 pm
Division: C
State: TX
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Texas 2013

Post by GeoChamp96 »

sofan wrote:http://www.soinc.org/sites/default/file ... -14-13.doc
it lists the possible events.
then go to soinc.org and find the event.
I mean the actual rules. The ones I'm doing are likely to change or don't exist at all.
User avatar
renxinhe
Member
Member
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon May 06, 2013 7:24 pm
Division: C
State: TX
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Texas 2013

Post by renxinhe »

jlee7x2 wrote:
2win wrote:
GeoChamp96 wrote:It might be just me, but this might have been the least-organized State competition in a while.
I wholeheartedly agree.

And like, this is minor in comparison to the wind problem for Storm the Castle, but one of their weights was actually >15cm tall, which kind of screwed my team over because the guys weren't prepared for that (although it was kind of the guys' fault for not leaving extra space.) But when we went to ask to measure the weight's height, the proctor took it and put it in the 15cm cube... diagonally... Not saying he was wrong and we were right, but really, that was just super cheesy.

And div. B should look out for Cinco, they look really good right now.
I saw that and I agree, that was pretty messed up what they did - it's their fault for not using the correct size hook as shown on the scioly tutorial for making a CW. :?

I also don't think they enforced the energy rule that they clarified on the website well at all either. They looked to see if the arm was not moving while in the LOCKED POSITION. Although my arm was energy balanced slightly favoring the backside, it could have been so frontloaded with mass and they wouldn't have even noticed. The dude just said, "i could tell just by looking that your arm was balanced", which doesn't make sense at all. I wonder if the other FATs and got the energy rule checked properly... Also, that wind was so variable throughout the day - at times it would favor teams at variable magnitudes, and it would also change directions, screwing up calibrations and predictions everywhere. I asked the event coordinator why in the world they would hold it outside with such gusts, and he said some team told them that they would fire 30m, but I'm pretty sure that didn't happen. I suggested that they just lower the CW to make everyone fire shorter distances so that they could hold the event inside, but they said that would be impossible. :|

Also, apparently gravity vehicle had a bunch of rules broken/teams that got tier 2'd who shouldn't have. Maglev vehicles got time to accelerate before the photogate, favoring teams with longer tracks, which isn't supposed to happen.

With boomilever, I also tested on the far right station - I meticulously made mine so it was balanced and everything was touching the wall at the starting position, but apparently my compression member was about half a centimeter away from the wall at that station, meaning that when weight was applied at the distal end, the compression members angled upwards, potentially causing it to break much earlier than expected. Thankfully, I caught it before hand and loosened the bolt, increasing the stress on the base and tensions members to make a right angle compression. Idk, that could have just been a design flaw or something wrong with my testing station I have at home, but since others are bringing it up too.. :roll:

Lastly, that small 16ft room for elastic launched glider was a real problem for a lot of teams; hugely different from what they had at regionals and invitationals which were typically held in gyms.

....really janky building event friday, but I guess with a brand new venue, some wrinkles just need to be ironed as the years go on.
Yup. I agree... Pretty much what happened to my team...
~JR
GeoChamp96
Member
Member
Posts: 44
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 7:38 pm
Division: C
State: TX
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Texas 2013

Post by GeoChamp96 »

Did anyone else catch that MagLev test copy? I mean, I kind of feel like our team had an unfair advantage in that, since we'd gone over it several times online and had memorized most of the answers... And I don't even know if they listened to our appeal.
iwonder
Admin Emeritus
Admin Emeritus
Posts: 1115
Joined: Tue May 10, 2011 8:25 pm
Division: Grad
State: TX
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: Texas 2013

Post by iwonder »

Our team caught on to the copied test but it had been a while since they went over that specific test. One of our team members went crazy at the hotel and started telling everyone to memorize the answers to all the tests from the one invite b/c he was convinced they'd do the same for the other events. Not sure where that idea came from...

Also, firing 30m with storm the castle, is within 3 meters(I believe) of a 100 percent efficient trebuchet. It's very highly unlikely. Even so, they could've found enough space indoors to do it, the rules have provisions for teams that throw too far as well.
'If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room' - Unknown
User avatar
jacobxc
Member
Member
Posts: 101
Joined: Wed Nov 30, 2011 4:15 am
Division: C
State: TX
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Texas 2013

Post by jacobxc »

Did anyone here time there own Grav vehicle and the proctors be off by 0.45 seconds or more
Real atheletes run miles not yards

Return to “2013 Invitationals, Regionals, and States”