Mission Possible C

[olympiaddict]

Anyone who has been to invitationals, what kind of scores are you seeing there?

[SWAnG]

Hi if i have a motor hitting a switch that activates a circuit powered by a homemade battery which then turns on the led would this be mechanical to chemical to ems?

It seems to me more of a Mech-Elec-Chem-Elec-Ems

[Bro]

Hi if i have a motor hitting a switch that activates a circuit powered by a homemade battery which then turns on the led would this be mechanical to chemical to ems?

Careful; I think batteries have to be factory-sealed

[gorf250]

.
Inverse transfers, I love 'em! Legal. Nothing in the rules says everything has to be "turned on to transfer." Think about it-- ENTROPY is your friend. Stop things. Block things. Cool things. (Just don't have any motors running beforehand). It's easier, trust me.

I agree with this, but do you know how to justify this to a new event supervisor? We were unable to argue to count a transfer involving blocking a light as mechanical to ems at a recent invitational. The event supervisor said the light was already on, so we did not transfer to ems.

[Uncle Fester]

Sorry to hear about your scoring issue. Although I pretty much rule Mission in Indiana, my authority ends at the border-- I don't do Nationals or other states any more. Cost of gas and my health.

But should you wish to debate it, or risk it elsewhere (maybe you don't):

Motors are the only devices NOT allowed to be on "prior".

There were no changes to device status (nothing changed) until the photoeye was blocked.
It was impossible for the transfer chain to continue until teh photo eye was shut off.

FYI, at this past weekend's tournament the top 5 teams had reverse transfers for EMS, including teh winner, which won Mission at Nationals last time it was a C event, in what was the most baffling-to-judge Bonus task. In fact, both then and now, they won handily even with a boundary violation.

[SWAnG]

Wow that's an incredible idea for Mech-EMS. Does anyone have anything for mech-Thermal-Mech?

[Uncle Fester]

Results of this past weekend:

Northridge Invitational, Middlebury Indiana. 42 teams, 40 Missions. Base your reading on Indiana Regionals starting next month, with State tournament in March (i.e., one month ahead of Ohio and Michigan, and four months behind Montana).

Half the teams used my "pile of photocells in parallel" and they all worked. Use it, people, it's easy and reliable.

NOBODY claimed batteries as a chem transfer, and the 6 I asked about it gave the same reason: "because the switch doesn't interface with the battery at all. It does with the ELECTRICAL circuit (completing path) though." TWO added something along the lines of "we have something better and claiming a 9-volt battery as chem is just dumb." Apparently pride fits in there somewhere, especially if you won at Nationals before.

I measure device dimensions, not box dimensions. Your tournament may differ. It's been done ttat way for 20 years, and the written rule has been unchanged (word-for-word identical) all that time, yet suddenly everyone (except me) is measuring the box. This punishes teams that can't afford to keep making smaller and smaller boxes, and design requirements prohibit a box taht can simply have sides and end cut off. Solution: smarter teams are building on laminated cardboard (corrugations 90 degrees apart for strength) to work out device sizes, and then transferring the device to a box for Non-Fester tournaments. Picking one corner in the back and building out from there in all three directions helps.

Winning team had a full set of points, ran one minute, and was smaller than a shoebox (the device, not the team).

Four had impound issues. Always, always, always check. They were lucky; I don't DQ at Invitationals.

Lighting a match. One team used 26 words on their ETL to describe "lighting a match". I laughed about it for two days. You people have been fighting over how many transfers a match can have, but you might want to consider this: melting something was 100% reliable. Using the match to burn something failed almost 50%. Did any of you know that Federal law requires book matches to extinguish themselves? Even Ohio Blue Tip matches have shrunk. Use matchES, three or four of them, and melt something with it, like fishing line. Mech -> Chem -> thermal. SImple, reliable, and you just made your Mission argument-proof.

Everyone had a chem disposal plan, and I was very happy. It's a very good idea to keep your event sup happy.

A bunch of teams here do what they call "The Portability Test". They load their device into the vehicle of somebody going out-of-town and it rides with them for the day. When they get back, the device gets unloaded, set up, and ran. Result? No travel surprises come tournament day.

Enough for now; I have another doctor's appointment.

Uncle Fester

[Robotica]

Four had impound issues. Always, always, always check. They were lucky; I don't DQ at Invitationals.

Uncle Fester

What type of impound issues, I thought that this was a non impound event?

[colorado mtn science]

So, earlier there was a discussion on whether or not the final task was scorable. As far as I can tell you can score it as an electric transfer, because electricity transfers to EMS, but not as an EMS transfer, because the light doesn't transfer to anything.

[colorado mtn science]

Also, I have a question. Does anyone know of a way to heat something to 80 Fahrenheit with IR waves?