Easiest event for you? Opinions! :3

[knightmoves]

Any build event. I flunk study events !!

I'd probably be terrible at a lot of the builds like It's About Time, Mission Possible, etc. I think the only builds I would be able to do are the balsa ones, Scrambler, and Detector Building.

Ohhh gosh. Scrambler LOOKS easy. It SOUNDS easy. But try to build one and well...
Let's just say that as a person who has 3 years of experience in vehicle events, Scrambler was so ANNOYING this year. Short fall height, tiny dimensions, etc. made the car and launcher a pain to design and calibrate. Maybe that's a skill issue, but it's so much worse than it sounds on the rules sheet...

I think the rules committee did a nice job with scrambler this year - the short fall height and relatively cramped length, plus the requirement to include some kind of floor protector in the length of your device, means you have to think a bit to optimize the design, which is appropriate for a C level event.

I wonder how they're going to tweak it for next year? The bucket might come back (bucket in the middle of the track that you have to curve around), and I think there's scope to drop the mass limit from 1.5 kg to 1kg without making the event impossibly difficult for those that are just getting started. You could also allocate more weight to time - right now, time is only relevant once you're consistently getting within a few cm of the target. Or you could go even shorter on the launcher. Shrinking it from 75cm to 60cm in length would kick the design complexity up a notch.

To onshape's point, I think It's about time is quite straightforward, actually. The balsa builds are challenging, because you're pushing the limits of light weight in order to score well. For IAT, you just have to build something that works. Mission, on the other hand... A thousand moving parts all crammed in to a tiny space, and if you look at it wrong, it doesn't work.

[pumptato-cat]

Yes, for sure. Scrambler was very interesting this year. Frustrating, but definitely a good challenge. I'm praying they don't shrink anything and instead bring the bucket off and weigh time more... I didn't build a spring launcher for nothing, ya know?

[knightmoves]

Yes, for sure. Scrambler was very interesting this year. Frustrating, but definitely a good challenge. I'm praying they don't shrink anything and instead bring the bucket off and weigh time more... I didn't build a spring launcher for nothing, ya know?

Reducing the weight to 1kg would be good for a spring launcher design, too, although you'd presumably need to make a couple of small adjustments.

[onshape]

Oh for sure--I guess it's relatively easy to medal depending on how competitive your region/state is. I'm an overachiever so I always calibrate my devices almost to perfection. But this year, 2nd place JV in my region was like 4 meters off... and that was a silver medal. So I don't think your team got lucky--it's not hard to medal in this event assuming you're not in SoCal or something... It's always easy to build a bridge or a plane, but making it perform well is a whole different story.

That makes sense. It must explain how we got 5th in Green Generation after only 1 hour of practice. I'm in Virginia, so the competitions are just averagely competitive. After barely any preparation this year, it makes sense that medaling in any event isn't very far of a reach, at least in regionals. Still, I feel like Scrambler is the one build anyone in our team actually put effort in (Some builds were neglected, one was rushed, and Bridge was, I would say, unlucky, in a sense.)

[knightmoves]

The thing I like about builds is that you know how you did. There's no "this was an easy test" or anything - you know how long your plane flew for, how close your scrambler came to the target, or what your bridge scored, and those scores are pretty directly comparable to other people's scores from other competitions. And maybe you medaled, or maybe you didn't, but you can still know that you worked on the build and scored twice as well as you did the last time you competed, regardless of where you placed in the rankings.

Oh for sure--I guess it's relatively easy to medal depending on how competitive your region/state is. I'm an overachiever so I always calibrate my devices almost to perfection. But this year, 2nd place JV in my region was like 4 meters off... and that was a silver medal.

Heh. I've been to one regional where just showing up with a build was enough to win a JV medal.

[pumptato-cat]

The thing I like about builds is that you know how you did. There's no "this was an easy test" or anything - you know how long your plane flew for, how close your scrambler came to the target, or what your bridge scored, and those scores are pretty directly comparable to other people's scores from other competitions. And maybe you medaled, or maybe you didn't, but you can still know that you worked on the build and scored twice as well as you did the last time you competed, regardless of where you placed in the rankings.

Oh for sure--I guess it's relatively easy to medal depending on how competitive your region/state is. I'm an overachiever so I always calibrate my devices almost to perfection. But this year, 2nd place JV in my region was like 4 meters off... and that was a silver medal.

Heh. I've been to one regional where just showing up with a build was enough to win a JV medal.

1) Excellent point you bring up--I still get anxious because I'm not sure how others do, though.. the suspense before awards is awful sometimes.
2) Oh boy. I saw a piece of plywood(Bridge) with no hole for a loading block at a states tournament last year. Someone rolled up to regionals a couple seasons back with a square of cardboard and straw axles. I'm not even sure if the mousetrap was taped on or not. And I have definitely seen paper airplanes for flight before...

[onshape]

1) Excellent point you bring up--I still get anxious because I'm not sure how others do, though.. the suspense before awards is awful sometimes.
2) Oh boy. I saw a piece of plywood(Bridge) with no hole for a loading block at a states tournament last year. Someone rolled up to regionals a couple seasons back with a square of cardboard and straw axles. I'm not even sure if the mousetrap was taped on or not. And I have definitely seen paper airplanes for flight before...

How'd they load the bridge without room for a loading block?

[pumptato-cat]

They didn't!
And then there was that oak wood 232g(yes I still remember exact numbers) laser cut arch bridge..

[knightmoves]

They didn't!
And then there was that oak wood 232g(yes I still remember exact numbers) laser cut arch bridge..

I saw an absolutely gorgeous laser-cut tower one year. It was three-sided, and the team had laser-cut a fine brace pattern in to a thin sheet of balsa for each side, then edge-glued them together to make a 3-sided tower. It was a thing of beauty - it's the most attractive balsa build I've ever seen.

It was also completely useless, because they cut it whole out of one sheet of balsa, so a lot of those skinny braces ran cross-grain, and the thing broke as soon as any load was added. I don't think it even successfully held the bucket.

It was pretty, though...

[onshape]

I saw an absolutely gorgeous laser-cut tower one year. It was three-sided, and the team had laser-cut a fine brace pattern in to a thin sheet of balsa for each side, then edge-glued them together to make a 3-sided tower. It was a thing of beauty - it's the most attractive balsa build I've ever seen.

It was also completely useless, because they cut it whole out of one sheet of balsa, so a lot of those skinny braces ran cross-grain, and the thing broke as soon as any load was added. I don't think it even successfully held the bucket.

It was pretty, though...

I think it's different if it looks like they worked on it, but it's funny when you hear that because it's not a tower aesthetic contest!

As for our bridge, we were absolutely behind time but our bridge was completely strong and stable. We were absolutely sure it would hold all 15kg. It only held 10.