Scioly.org

It's not too vague... It's the outermost part of the car... Like, on the far side of the vehicle. I just drilled a hole on the edge of my vehicle and stuck a paperclip in it. Did you at least protest the ruling?

iwonder wrote:I agree with MrSteven, it sounds like they were just enforcing the rules. I was there yesterday, actually, and I think they did a very good job with gravity vehicle, after the initial problem with impound and some confusion with a bad tape measure(it read that our ramp was 77cm becuase it didn't have a 0 mark). In the future I would suggest very careful study of the rules so this doesn't happen again.

Oh, and we don't know places yet, but if you're interested...
Target distance: 32mm
Time: 5.75
Predicted time: 4.4
Height: 30cm

How far did you have to go?

6.5m

Cheese_Muffin_Man wrote:

iwonder wrote:I agree with MrSteven, it sounds like they were just enforcing the rules. I was there yesterday, actually, and I think they did a very good job with gravity vehicle, after the initial problem with impound and some confusion with a bad tape measure(it read that our ramp was 77cm becuase it didn't have a 0 mark). In the future I would suggest very careful study of the rules so this doesn't happen again.

Oh, and we don't know places yet, but if you're interested...
Target distance: 32mm
Time: 5.75
Predicted time: 4.4
Height: 30cm

How far did you have to go?

6.5 meters

I would like to keep my comments as general rather than an opinion on your device. Without a photo of the actual device it is difficult to know what it looks like.

I think we all prefer to see these competitions decided by the results , not by a judgement call. That said judgement calls are a necessary part of these events and are often tough for the judges as well as the competitors.
First of all we try to build well inside of the spec to allow for differences in measuring tools and techniques. If the rules say we can build to 75 cm we build to 74 or maybe less. Our Gravity Vehicle weighs 1494 grams and we have two small weights that can be easily removed in case we still end up being "overweight" on the official scale.

Second if we have something on our device that we think might come into question ( not always easy to anticipate) we take the device and the rules to the head coach prior to the tournament and discuss the rules and why we think we are in compliance. If we all don't agree we make the changes before the tournament

Third , if we need to challenge a call we have the head coach , very calmly and respectfully, ask the judge to review the highlighted copy of the rules we have with us at all times and after they have had a chance to review them the coach will offer our interpretation.
This has served us well and while we have not had a 100% success rate we have always felt that we did our best to get a fair shake for not only our own team but the other teams that may be impacted by the same call.
These volunteers have a tough job.

Stingray355 wrote:I would like to keep my comments as general rather than an opinion on your device. Without a photo of the actual device it is difficult to know what it looks like.

I think we all prefer to see these competitions decided by the results , not by a judgement call. That said judgement calls are a necessary part of these events and are often tough for the judges as well as the competitors.
First of all we try to build well inside of the spec to allow for differences in measuring tools and techniques. If the rules say we can build to 75 cm we build to 74 or maybe less. Our Gravity Vehicle weighs 1494 grams and we have two small weights that can be easily removed in case we still end up being "overweight" on the official scale.

Second if we have something on our device that we think might come into question ( not always easy to anticipate) we take the device and the rules to the head coach prior to the tournament and discuss the rules and why we think we are in compliance. If we all don't agree we make the changes before the tournament

Third , if we need to challenge a call we have the head coach , very calmly and respectfully, ask the judge to review the highlighted copy of the rules we have with us at all times and after they have had a chance to review them the coach will offer our interpretation.
This has served us well and while we have not had a 100% success rate we have always felt that we did our best to get a fair shake for not only our own team but the other teams that may be impacted by the same call.
These volunteers have a tough job.

Well your smart because you discuss the error before competition not after, so then any changes can be made. Now our car defiantly has plenty of room for change. The reason of our concern was the proctor. yes i can see where our car had a construction violation, but we could have fixed it if the proctor would have followed the rules too. When she impounded or car she check to see if our car was in specs and she approved it and as everyone should knows paperclip is one of the things on the list to check. So even if we had finished impounding when she pointed it out. Rule 5G states "Competitors have 8 minutes of Event Time to set up, dry clean the track, make any changes to the vehicle (including adjusting the Measuring Point)...". So if the proctor had followed her rules and not come up with this violation after testing and after falsely accusing of us of a different construction violation. This would have not happened and we would have gotten 2nd or 3rd. That is why I am mad.

It's hard to say from what you're saying if the event supervisor was in the wrong. Personally, I think doing as much checking as possible during impound is great but as far as I know, that's not stated in the rules. More realistically, from the tournaments I've been to, event supervisors might check for several items on their check list during impound and the rest are checked when the students go back in to test it. This could be because of time constraints or that things could be moved between impound and the start of a run. Now, if the paper clip is something that he/she was checking during impound for all the teams but missed it for your team, then yah, I think that might seem unfair. Sorry :\

jacobxc wrote:

Stingray355 wrote:I would like to keep my comments as general rather than an opinion on your device. Without a photo of the actual device it is difficult to know what it looks like.

I think we all prefer to see these competitions decided by the results , not by a judgement call. That said judgement calls are a necessary part of these events and are often tough for the judges as well as the competitors.
First of all we try to build well inside of the spec to allow for differences in measuring tools and techniques. If the rules say we can build to 75 cm we build to 74 or maybe less. Our Gravity Vehicle weighs 1494 grams and we have two small weights that can be easily removed in case we still end up being "overweight" on the official scale.

Second if we have something on our device that we think might come into question ( not always easy to anticipate) we take the device and the rules to the head coach prior to the tournament and discuss the rules and why we think we are in compliance. If we all don't agree we make the changes before the tournament

Third , if we need to challenge a call we have the head coach , very calmly and respectfully, ask the judge to review the highlighted copy of the rules we have with us at all times and after they have had a chance to review them the coach will offer our interpretation.
This has served us well and while we have not had a 100% success rate we have always felt that we did our best to get a fair shake for not only our own team but the other teams that may be impacted by the same call.
These volunteers have a tough job.

Well your smart because you discuss the error before competition not after, so then any changes can be made. Now our car defiantly has plenty of room for change. The reason of our concern was the proctor. yes i can see where our car had a construction violation, but we could have fixed it if the proctor would have followed the rules too. When she impounded or car she check to see if our car was in specs and she approved it and as everyone should knows paperclip is one of the things on the list to check. So even if we had finished impounding when she pointed it out. Rule 5G states "Competitors have 8 minutes of Event Time to set up, dry clean the track, make any changes to the vehicle (including adjusting the Measuring Point)...". So if the proctor had followed her rules and not come up with this violation after testing and after falsely accusing of us of a different construction violation. This would have not happened and we would have gotten 2nd or 3rd. That is why I am mad.

I think I saw your vehicle. I even remembering thinking how smart and professional it looked (both the vehicle as a whole and the pin on the side in the block of wood). Can't believe they put you guys in tier 2 because of that.

twistedladder wrote:

jacobxc wrote:

Stingray355 wrote:I would like to keep my comments as general rather than an opinion on your device. Without a photo of the actual device it is difficult to know what it looks like.

I think we all prefer to see these competitions decided by the results , not by a judgement call. That said judgement calls are a necessary part of these events and are often tough for the judges as well as the competitors.
First of all we try to build well inside of the spec to allow for differences in measuring tools and techniques. If the rules say we can build to 75 cm we build to 74 or maybe less. Our Gravity Vehicle weighs 1494 grams and we have two small weights that can be easily removed in case we still end up being "overweight" on the official scale.

Second if we have something on our device that we think might come into question ( not always easy to anticipate) we take the device and the rules to the head coach prior to the tournament and discuss the rules and why we think we are in compliance. If we all don't agree we make the changes before the tournament

Third , if we need to challenge a call we have the head coach , very calmly and respectfully, ask the judge to review the highlighted copy of the rules we have with us at all times and after they have had a chance to review them the coach will offer our interpretation.
This has served us well and while we have not had a 100% success rate we have always felt that we did our best to get a fair shake for not only our own team but the other teams that may be impacted by the same call.
These volunteers have a tough job.

Well your smart because you discuss the error before competition not after, so then any changes can be made. Now our car defiantly has plenty of room for change. The reason of our concern was the proctor. yes i can see where our car had a construction violation, but we could have fixed it if the proctor would have followed the rules too. When she impounded or car she check to see if our car was in specs and she approved it and as everyone should knows paperclip is one of the things on the list to check. So even if we had finished impounding when she pointed it out. Rule 5G states "Competitors have 8 minutes of Event Time to set up, dry clean the track, make any changes to the vehicle (including adjusting the Measuring Point)...". So if the proctor had followed her rules and not come up with this violation after testing and after falsely accusing of us of a different construction violation. This would have not happened and we would have gotten 2nd or 3rd. That is why I am mad.

I think I saw your vehicle. I even remembering thinking how smart and professional it looked (both the vehicle as a whole and the pin on the side in the block of wood). Can't believe they put you guys in tier 2 because of that.

Our car went after LASA's and had the blue and white striped ramp.

Does anyone know the winning score at Nationals?