Sign Task

[penclspinner]

I agree that putting too much weight is not good; but within reason, it seems to be better to have a heavier sign (up to the reasonable limit) rather than to have a lighter sign.

Heard about one MP device (didn't witness it myself) that had a sign of about 10 grams and successfully completed the final task.

Think they had some angels to help provide extra lift.

At regionals?

Yes, at regionals.

[yousmellchinese123]

I did not know that we were able to see the mass of the sign. But, wow 10 grams. 100 points...

[haverstall]

What size balloons are people using?

We've found that 15" are pretty useful

[NikitaB]

We have some 17" latex balloons that fill up an entire 50x50cm cube. The only thing is that they are a bit pear shaped, so that the largest dimension turns out to be the pear side. We saw one team that was using the sort of balloons found at car dealerships - it was essentially a sphere! How many grams are people getting. We have been able to get about 10g but that was without having the 17" incher fully inflated.

[haverstall]

yeah...with ours, we've been trying to measure our sign accurately, but we're getting values from 8 grams to 16 grams

Do you guys see any that were just first and last task? I know that idea had been floating around for a while.

[jsorrell414]

What do you think is the definition of hanging from the bottom of the balloon? Just as an example, do you think that a string attached to the bottom of a balloon pulling up the sign via a pair pulleys would count as the sign hanging from the bottom of the balloon?

[Flavorflav]

No.

[Primate]

What do you think is the definition of hanging from the bottom of the balloon? Just as an example, do you think that a string attached to the bottom of a balloon pulling up the sign via a pair pulleys would count as the sign hanging from the bottom of the balloon?

That would seriously violate the "spirit of the competition." And good luck getting that sign over the top of your device; you'd never be able to if pulleys were involved.

[tjessberger]

I placed first out our (relatively non-competitive) regional competition yesterday (Grandview Heights Regional). We completed three total tasks. The start task, the sand timer, and the final task (with the balloon carrying 13 grams worth of sign). We had full ideal time, and the sand timer ran for 59 of those sixty seconds (and full TSL points). Other groups had full TSLs, but the proctors said our strategy absolutely own them. We ended up winning by 30 points I think? We're doing full tasks for states though, we had two devices built.

[bwy]

I placed first out our (relatively non-competitive) regional competition yesterday (Grandview Heights Regional). We completed three total tasks. The start task, the sand timer, and the final task (with the balloon carrying 13 grams worth of sign). We had full ideal time, and the sand timer ran for 59 of those sixty seconds (and full TSL points). Other groups had full TSLs, but the proctors said our strategy absolutely own them. We ended up winning by 30 points I think? We're doing full tasks for states though, we had two devices built.

I'm happy for you that your competitions are so easy
That's something I was considering doing, and I thought it was a genius idea, but I just realized my region/state is probably too competitive (southern California) to make it work. Did your sand timer and mousetrap really take up so much space you couldn't use a bigger balloon to lift more weight? I was hoping that by minimizing everything else (and having a 48 cm balloon) I could fit a balloon big enough to lift at least 40 grams. By doing that, you could probably get up to 1360 points (with an ideal time of 90 seconds), which sounds pretty decent to me.