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cnapun wrote:
They were very cheap and rated for pretty high thrust, and you can fit 2 on a vehicle. I also like the increased sense of safety with no open propellers, although my fan did rip a hole in my sweatshirt.

I know, right? No stitches, thankfully, but we did have one pretty bad cut before we went to ducted. I must say it's kind of funny to be talking about the safety of the magnets in a room full of open spinning blades.

Are they going to make Maglev a Division B event? It was a demo event for B at States.

Flavorflav wrote:

cnapun wrote:
They were very cheap and rated for pretty high thrust, and you can fit 2 on a vehicle. I also like the increased sense of safety with no open propellers, although my fan did rip a hole in my sweatshirt.

I know, right? No stitches, thankfully, but we did have one pretty bad cut before we went to ducted. I must say it's kind of funny to be talking about the safety of the magnets in a room full of open spinning blades.

I think we may have beaten you...my teammate released our car, known as "The Deathmobile", this week, which shot forward and lacerated his index finger and thumb about 12 times, turning both fingers into hamburger meat. He lost at least three tablespoons of blood and almost passed out on the kitchen floor.

I sure hope they don't discontinue this event. I believe that a safety protocol could very easily be employed to make this a safe event (many have been mentioned in these posts).
Even a "dry" run, starting with the motors off, showing where everybody will be positioned (the "cut on" person, the "release" person...) followed by a "mock run", hand-pushing the car down the track, and ending with an explanation/mock-demonstration of the "stop" assembly and power down procedure should make everyone a lot safer. This is pretty much what has already been suggested. I'll bet nearly every injury that has occurred with this event has occurred because the participants weren't giving the car the respect it deserves. As I've mentioned before, as coach, I had the forethought to get cut first thereby demonstrating what not to do the students. You're welcome guys.

joeyjoejoe wrote:I sure hope they don't discontinue this event. I believe that a safety protocol could very easily be employed to make this a safe event (many have been mentioned in these posts).
Even a "dry" run, starting with the motors off, showing where everybody will be positioned (the "cut on" person, the "release" person...) followed by a "mock run", hand-pushing the car down the track, and ending with an explanation/mock-demonstration of the "stop" assembly and power down procedure should make everyone a lot safer. This is pretty much what has already been suggested. I'll bet nearly every injury that has occurred with this event has occurred because the participants weren't giving the car the respect it deserves. As I've mentioned before, as coach, I had the forethought to get cut first thereby demonstrating what not to do the students. You're welcome guys.

We pretty much already did that: http://www.soinc.org/official_rules_clarif

MagLev (2/24/13) 5.a.iii. last paragraph should read: "They must place a pencil (or other object) in front..." and Add: "But, prior to starting a run, and without actually turning on the motor(s), competitors must demonstrate the handling processes they will utilize to ensure they will not come in contact with a moving propeller."

Has anyone else had difficulty weighing their vehicle, the magnets seem to affect the electronic scale that we have been using? We had to use a block of foam on the scale under the vehicle, not sure if we can trust the readings.

Is it that when you get the magnets close to the scale it starts to give negative readings? In my experience that's just because the scale's tray hads some ferrous metal in it and the magnets pull up on that. Once on the scale I've never seen them effect it. (Sometimes the metal is hidden, like in one of ours it's covered by a plastic top piece that we had to remove to figure it out)

Definitely be careful with magnets around scales. Last fall I ruined a small pocket digital scale trying to weight a maglev vehicle (not sure what the magnets did to it, but now it won't even power on).

ohiostar wrote:Has anyone else had difficulty weighing their vehicle, the magnets seem to affect the electronic scale that we have been using? We had to use a block of foam on the scale under the vehicle, not sure if we can trust the readings.

If you don't care about precision too much, just use a bathroom scale. Weigh yourself, then weigh yourself with the car, and take the difference.

What scores are people getting?
I have states tomorrow and right now one way down the track i get 0.5 seconds with a 1.1 kg car, the other way i get about 0.75 seconds
EDIT: we are actually getting more like a second both ways because I calculated using the wrong framerate

Is your track level? Thats a big difference between the two directions.