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What have some of the top scores at states been?...27-4th place TX

andrewwski wrote:Looking at the draft rules, I really hope they increase the time from 5 minutes to 10 minutes or so. 5 minutes is not enough to launch two rockets, especially counting the time it takes to pressurize the rocket and the time aloft, plus the fact that they expect you to retrieve it immediately. With winds, I'm expecting it to travel downrange at least a few hundred feet.

Anyone messed around with bottle rockets extensively? I used to launch bottles by sticking tire valve stems in them and pressurizing, but I'll need to make a decent launcher with a clamp of some sort (probably using the bottle's flange) and a pressure gauge.

Plus I'm going to have to figure out recovery - there's got to be a way to have just a padded capsule detach and parachute down.

there an obvious solution that i use, and i would tell u but then it wouldn't be so fun to write this here...

Our team got first overall using a method involving putting the egg in its own capsule with the parachute attached. This worked pretty well, and we won, although our time was around 11 seconds... Without an egg, I can get 1:20. But anyway, what kind of design did you guys use? (Especially people who won, so I can get an idea of some other things that might work.)

cypressfalls_Robert wrote:What have some of the top scores at states been?...27-4th place TX

31 at State; 38 at Regionals (won easily at both); 58+ testing

Balsa Man:

Were those numbers you gave the number of seconds the egg capsule was in the air?

Or were they air times plus bonus time(s)?

If the latter, what were the air times?

They are scores - what cypressfalls asked for..
Subtract 18 sec for hang-times (which were 13, 20, and 40)

Balsa Man wrote:They are scores - what cypressfalls asked for..
Subtract 18 sec for hang-times (which were 13, 20, and 40)

It wouldn't feel bad to lose to 40 sec air time. I'd feel honored to witness that. Take a bow - you deserve it.

seoliver wrote:

Balsa Man wrote:They are scores - what cypressfalls asked for..
Subtract 18 sec for hang-times (which were 13, 20, and 40)

It wouldn't feel bad to lose to 40 sec air time. I'd feel honored to witness that. Take a bow - you deserve it.

I'm just the coach, so a bow for the kids -
Robert, our Chineese exchange student, who was the Egg-O-Naut Team leader & Adam his partner, and Paul & Emily (Team 2 at Regionals). Interestingly, the best time- the 40 sec hang time - came on the first test, done at night. Later testing had a number of shots in the hi-20s/low 30s (hang time). It was all about how big a chute they could get to deploy; smaller chute more likely to deploy, but shorter hang time; bigger chute, less likely to deploy, but better hang time. What surprised us was (even with times well short of testing results) was how front out in front we were at Regionals (38 & 36 w/ bonuses- 1st and 2nd, with 3rd at about 21), and still at State, where second was still about 21.

Balsa Man wrote:

seoliver wrote:

Balsa Man wrote:They are scores - what cypressfalls asked for..
Subtract 18 sec for hang-times (which were 13, 20, and 40)

It wouldn't feel bad to lose to 40 sec air time. I'd feel honored to witness that. Take a bow - you deserve it.

I'm just the coach, so a bow for the kids -
Robert, our Chineese exchange student, who was the Egg-O-Naut Team leader & Adam his partner, and Paul & Emily (Team 2 at Regionals). Interestingly, the best time- the 40 sec hang time - came on the first test, done at night. Later testing had a number of shots in the hi-20s/low 30s (hang time). It was all about how big a chute they could get to deploy; smaller chute more likely to deploy, but shorter hang time; bigger chute, less likely to deploy, but better hang time. What surprised us was (even with times well short of testing results) was how front out in front we were at Regionals (38 & 36 w/ bonuses- 1st and 2nd, with 3rd at about 21), and still at State, where second was still about 21.

Hey cool we have a German/chinese exchange student on our team also!-She is coming with us to nats too. thanks for the times..highly appreciated

At Nationas some Egg-O nauts sat on the launcher for about 10-15 minutes while the teams were asked to wait to launch. SInce the bottle was pressurized they could not make any adjustments to the rocket as the wind kept blowing them around on the launcher. In the end some parts worked loose and in one case that I saw (and talked to the team who built it) the parachute disconnected from the egg capsule while sitting on the launcher for over 10 minute. When they launched the rocket performed exactly as designed, and would have certainly been in the top 10 or so (maybe better) but the parachute completely detached from the egg capsule while sitting on the launcher. They needed to have worked out the bugs before comming to Augusta, so that the event could have been run according to the rules (the rules say that the teams have a total of 5 minutes to launch). The teams practice according to the rules, and even though the way the event was run it caused problems for many teams, the problems are not always equal so some teams are penalized much more than others when the rules are not adheared to.

As an aside, I also got to see a nice simple Egg-O -Naut that caught such a strong up draft that it actually went up for probably 10 or more seconds. It only had about a 12-18" chute so the updraft must have been very strong. I don't know if they won or not because the capsule ended up in a tree off campus, so they should not have recieved the 15 point egg survival bonus, but still their time was great. Now I certainly don't blame the SO event coordinator for the wind, but it does bring up the fact that an uncontrolled variable (wind) introduced a huge measure of random chance into this event, something that one is supposed to avoid in a science competition. Overall I think that these random chance factors tend to even out when spread out over 23 events, but it still can be very demoralizing to someone who put a tremendous amount of work into an event, to lose because they were unlucky rather then because they didn't have the best device. I think it would be really nice to have the SO people look over these events with an eye to removing the random chance as much as is possible, even if it means eliminating events and switching to others. The top teams at Nationals put tremendous amounts of time and effort into each and every event and they can really feel let down when an event is won or lost onthe toss of a coin rather than skill or knowledge.