Scioly.org

I wish this event had more scoring to deal with accuracy rather than just speed. For example at regional’s we had a total score in the very low single digits because we had decent speed and great stopping power [ended up under 3cm], but this same run at state would give a score around 28 which would be good enough for second at New York’s state. How many people have times under 15 seconds? I know the vehicle I have now is good but I'm really trying to get the time down much lower than it is currently [I have a little over 1 month to come up with a way to increase power, and speed without dropping the accuracy]. Would it be safe to say using state scoring that a score of under 20 would be very good?

packer-backer91 wrote:I wish this event had more scoring to deal with accuracy rather than just speed. For example at regional’s we had a total score in the very low single digits because we had decent speed and great stopping power [ended up under 3cm], but this same run at state would give a score around 28 which would be good enough for second at New York’s state. How many people have times under 15 seconds? I know the vehicle I have now is good but I'm really trying to get the time down much lower than it is currently [I have a little over 1 month to come up with a way to increase power, and speed without dropping the accuracy]. Would it be safe to say using state scoring that a score of under 20 would be very good?

I think that the idea was that a lot of teams will be able to produce excellent accuracy, as we saw in Electric Vehicle last year. Going for speed makes ties at the top much less likely.

So Pennsylvania's Southwest Regionals is tomorrow, and I still don't have a mousetrap vehicle completed... It's pretty much a combination of procrastination, and over-confidence. The best part is, one of the tech teachers who's helping me out keeps asking "why did you wait until the last minute to build this stupid thing?" yet, everytime I asked for help earlier this month he kept telling me "You have plenty of time, we can work on it next week." lmao... Car or not, this is going to be a fun Science Olympiad day... Atleast I have a car that looks visualing pleasing; the fact that it only moves forward about 1 meter is the only downer, lmao..... That's what happens when your SciO partner doesn't bother helping you out...

Just on a fun little note, I'm currently sitting in my school's Tech room... yeah, me and both my tech teachers are out of ideas, and I feel entirely defeated...

x16VOLTx wrote:Just on a fun little note, I'm currently sitting in my school's Tech room... yeah, me and both my tech teachers are out of ideas, and I feel entirely defeated...

do you need help?

x16VOLTx wrote:Just on a fun little note, I'm currently sitting in my school's Tech room... yeah, me and both my tech teachers are out of ideas, and I feel entirely defeated...

Step 1: Go to the Mousetrap Vehicle Wiki

Step 2: Build the 3rd design... Just throw it together, it won't be that bad...

Step 3: Get a place between 5 and 10. You did your job.

Step 4: Actually perfect the vehicle for states.

Haha, thanks for the offers guys. About two and a half hours before the school day was over today, I asked Mr.M, one of my tech teachers, if he would be upset with me If I started the whole project over and built a new car... He basically shunned me for the rest of the day, and wouldn't really give me anymore advice... lmao. On the other hand, Mr. J, my other tech teacher, was up for the idea...

I basically completed my car in about five hours, half at school, the rest at home. It's not dead on, but it completes the task at hand, and I'm thrilled... Plus the whole thing was a total guess, I didn't even use the wiki...

Regionals is tomorrow, and I'm really excited. =)

x16VOLTx wrote:Haha, thanks for the offers guys. About two and a half hours before the school day was over today, I asked Mr.M, one of my tech teachers, if he would be upset with me If I started the whole project over and built a new car... He basically shunned me for the rest of the day, and wouldn't really give me anymore advice... lmao. On the other hand, Mr. J, my other tech teacher, was up for the idea...

I basically completed my car in about five hours, half at school, the rest at home. It's not dead on, but it completes the task at hand, and I'm thrilled... Plus the whole thing was a total guess, I didn't even use the wiki...

Regionals is tomorrow, and I'm really excited. =)

Your regionals is on a WEDNESDAY?!?!??

Okay...

Anyways, how'd it do? And how did you design it?

Hi! I'm new to this and I'm currently working on a better mousetrap car. I'm thinking of building idea #3 on the wiki--the one that uses 2 mousetraps to go and come back. I have 2 questions. (1) Is this the best design? (2) For idea #3 how am I supposed to attach a pin onto an axle for the reversing part? Any help will be appreciated. Thanks

Mistwalkera wrote:Hi! I'm new to this and I'm currently working on a better mousetrap car. I'm thinking of building idea #3 on the wiki--the one that uses 2 mousetraps to go and come back. I have 2 questions. (1) Is this the best design? (2) For idea #3 how am I supposed to attach a pin onto an axle for the reversing part? Any help will be appreciated. Thanks

Well, that's what seemed easiest to my team. 1.) How well it works depends on how well you make it. 2.)We just wrapped a copper wire around the front axle, left around 2 cm sticking out, and hot glued it in place. This design takes some trial and error to figure out how many times you have to wrap the string around the axle before and after twisting it around the wire. Hope I helped.