Trajectory B/C

[starpug]

CAN SOMEONE GIVE ME A GOOD DESIGN??

As other people have mentioned that is for you to find out, every team has different capabilities ex. skill level, tools, and different ideas for the device. So you shouldn't be asking us for we can give you the design of the nats winner and other various designs that can be hard to understand, much less use in competition when the pressure is on, if you do not have experience. Use the following resources to help you pick a design.
Read the rest of this topic, I can tell you obviously haven't done this (+1 dead puppies)
Read the wiki for Trajectory
do some research on medieval Siege Weapons and the such to help give you ideas.

[The Beast]

It doesnt say anything about how you can power a trebuchet so yeah.......

[andrewwski]

I'm not making fun of anyone, and I certainly don't consider myself a nerd. And 4:54 PM is certainly not late at night.

But it annoys me when people ask questions that are clearly answered in the rules. If the rules clearly state something, please don't come here asking what can be answered by just reading them. If you're unclear on how to interpret them, that's one thing, but asking something that's obvious is annoying.

It doesn't just apply here though...I see it at competition as well. Every year there's about 10% to 20% of the teams in the building events at regionals that get disqualified or tier 2'ed because they don't follow the rules. To me, that's just stupid. It only takes 5 minutes to read them.

But what's with everyone asking for a design or just how to do something? Nobody here is going to write you 20 pages on how to do something. Do your own research first, come up with a design, and then ask questions. Don't say that people are not as good as me, because that's not true. I don't consider myself good, I consider myself dedicated. I put countless hours into doing these events, and when I don't know something, I find out either through research or experimentation. Nobody tells me how I should do them...yes, people have suggestions, but as a team we come up with our own solutions and build them.

Now, in response to an actual question about the event. I'll quote a PM I just received, withholding the user name.

thxs but it doesnt really say anything about how you can power a trebuchet or if they count the power as using the wieght or if its powered by gravity.

I'm going to now quote the event rules again.

3.a. The launching force must be supplied by non-metallic elastic solids...

So, according to the rules, the only launching force must be coming from a non-metallic elastic solid. It doesn't matter if you're making a slingshot or a ballista or a trebuchet, the launching force has to come from the non-metallic elastic solid.

So if you're going to use a trebuchet, by definition it's going to be powered by gravity. So, reading those rules, you can't use a trebuchet. Because you wouldn't be using a non-metallic elastic solid to launch it.

[SiegeLord]

Let's be civil here and not call anyone names, it's not productive. And yeah... reading the rules is always a good idea. Some posts may now be gone...

Carry on.

[binary010101]

Doesn't your school provide you with a copy of the rulebook? Our Science Olympiad program doesn't start until after the Coaches' Conference and the rule packets are handed out.

[captbilly]

How many of you are able to get a perfect score on your trajectory? I heard somewhere, though I have never been able to verify it, that something like 5 or 10 teams at nationals got a zero distance (target area score) on both targets. If that is true it would mean that the top places were determined by tie breakers. Does anyone know of any team that got perfect scores on both targets? Part of the reason I am curious about this is that I don't see how the event coordinator can measure the impact point to within better than a few centimeters. I cannot see how anyone could claim to be able to measure the "initial projectile impact point" to with in anything like milimeter accuracy (that is the unit of measurement quoted in the rule book). If virtually nobody is getting multiple hits within a centimeter of the target than this isn't going to be an issue, but if many competitors are able to consistently hit the bullseye I could see some real issues picking the top few places.

[starpug]

Arden most definately got zero distance on both targets. We had gotten a perfect score when practiceing inside, both of the competitions I went to were outside so our black surgical heated up and we lost power and accuracy.

[penclspinner]

How many of you are able to get a perfect score on your trajectory? I heard somewhere, though I have never been able to verify it, that something like 5 or 10 teams at nationals got a zero distance (target area score) on both targets. If that is true it would mean that the top places were determined by tie breakers. Does anyone know of any team that got perfect scores on both targets? Part of the reason I am curious about this is that I don't see how the event coordinator can measure the impact point to within better than a few centimeters. I cannot see how anyone could claim to be able to measure the "initial projectile impact point" to with in anything like milimeter accuracy (that is the unit of measurement quoted in the rule book). If virtually nobody is getting multiple hits within a centimeter of the target than this isn't going to be an issue, but if many competitors are able to consistently hit the bullseye I could see some real issues picking the top few places.

When I was setting up Trajectory B and C what was done to help improve the accuracy of impact location was to spread sand over the target locations. This allowed the event supervisors to have a pretty accurate measurement for the location of the initial impact.

[andrewwski]

I'm still wondering about the trebuchet thing, because somebody earlier said:

"Think about how high your projectile will go. Two years ago the best trebuchet at Nationals ended up hitting the ceiling on 2 out of three shots. If trajectory is done indoors where you live you will need to keep the firing angle relatively low so you don't hit a ceiling...."

That means somebody did use a trebuchet?

The rules (or event) may have been different. Maybe they were talking about Storm the Castle (which was trebuchet).

The rules don't allow trebuchets, so stop wasting your time on them.

[starpug]

Two years ago there was no Trajectory it was Storm the Castle, and I remember hearing about that two years ago from my Storm the Castle coach.