Egg-O-Naut C

[sciencegeek100]

At our regionals, the peerson runningthe event told us that they had broke the launcher, so we couldn't launch That made me mad. They said they would judge them by design. Idk how they could do that fairly, since they wouldn't know how it actually flies. We took second in that event so i'm not complaining, but i still think that was wierd. Dont you At the end of the day, we didn't even get our rockets back. We never even launched our rocket before.

i would have protested, and then not left until they gave me back the rocket...they really aren't allowed to keep it...you need to be able to use it at the next competition...i would call and complain until they return the rockets...which regionals...i would suggest complaining to the state director

lol, they shouldn't be judging it by design.. I feel sorry for the teams that didnt medal, even thought they may have had better rockets. That's total BS, everyone should have protested it!

if that happened they should have dropped the event from the overall scoring....

[sciencegeek100]

i have a question for you nerds
if we use hot glue to glue the fins to the bottle and th bottle becomes slightly indented due to the heat, is that considered an alteration to the bottles integrity?

hot glue is illegal... we use tape....

[seoliver]

hot glue is illegal... we use tape....

Somebody said that epoxy was OK and legal, but we haven't tried it. I thought that epoxy gets warm when it cures, so I'd be afraid of heat alteration of the PET bottle.

Silicone, in particular something called "Clear Seal" works very well if you have the patience to wait for it to set properly (days).

There are other glues that will stick to PET, but the selection depends on the fin material.

Tape is OK for a rush job, but I have trouble getting the fin to stay steady.

I'm sure that there is a much better solution than I'm aware of. Sorry.

[dickyjones]

I'd judge the breaking the egg idea automatically with zero seconds because timing begins when the rocket deploys and ends when the portion of the rocket containing the egg reaches the ground. Since the majority of the mass of the egg is already on the ground when the rocket launches, the egg didn't get any fly time, is broken, and can't get separation bonus since it is separated at the beginning. Plus the whole "spirit of the competition" clause might just get you DQ'd entirely.

[seoliver]

No doubt that shouldn't be allowed. Regardless of whether or not it's stated in the rules, it's clearly implied. The whole "violating the spirit of competition" clause can be used in situations like that. Or the "teams should not interpret the rules to give them an advantage" part.

Touche.

It was meant to be an extreme illustration, and I wouldn't really fly just the shell. I am, however, actively straining my brain for something that would achieve the mythical 90 sec, without wandering outside the box.

[dickyjones]

Try catching a thermal.

[wlsguy]

Does the cone just fall off at the apogee(highest point in flight)

That's a dangerous approach. When it works, it's great, but it has not been reliable for us. We have had so many wet and windy launch days, including competition, that it's scary. The fall-off cone has to be secure enough on the pad and during ascent to stay straight, but too straight and it wants to take a ballistic trajectory. It's a tricky balance that we have observed being disturbed by windy conditions. If we do that, we'll take several versions with varying degrees of stability, and select according to conditions.

I'm wondering if the best idea isn't to forgo the intact-egg bonus. Break it before launch, dump the guts on the ground, and fly the shell. Then I can give you 90 sec, I'm sure.

I agree that this is against the "Spirit of the Compeitition".
That being said, I also think that it would be difficult to stop a team from competing (with the current rules) if they broke their egg prior to launch. Since you get 2 eggs, you could always try it with one of them. Just accidently drop one of them on the ground, scoop up the parts you want, and launch your rocket.

I think it's good to see students thinking outside the box and trying to come up with inventive solutions. The whole "Spirit of the Compeitition" seems to keep the kids that don't think this way from being embarrassed by the performace of the kids that do.

[seoliver]

Again, before anybody gets really POed: I wasn't suggesting that anybody should actually break the egg or keep it in their hand. I was just trying to illustrate a way of thinking (which I like), and what the response would be (which I'm not so happy with).

That said, as a judge, I would behave exactly as the judges do today, given their environment. I have nothing but admiration for what they do and how they do it.

Also, an innovation is only innovative the first time. In the ideal, the rules would change the next year to exclude any weird configuration that produced an unreal score. Whatever those 90 sec boys are doing should only be allowed once.

A word about the rules: Having bashed our heads against the wall trying to get something to work with so little available energy, the rule writers should be congratulated for the maximum 1-liter bottle size idea. If the situation on the ground does not encourage original thinking, it's certainly no fault of the people designing the events, who seem to be doing their best to promote it.

[andrewwski]

There's a difference between thinking outside the box and stretching the rules.

[seoliver]

There's a difference between thinking outside the box and stretching the rules.

Yes, but there can be a relationship. The question I came here with related to stored energy in something like a marginally stretched rubber band. That's tugging a bit on the rules, enough that it might not be worth risking in competition.