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windu34 wrote: Have you asked chalker? I would think he could find out

Oh I definitely know, since I personally built the tracks for Div B and have had lots of discussions with the Div C supervisor about his tracks. But I don't think it would be fair to post the info here where only some of the competitors might see it.

chalker wrote:

windu34 wrote: Have you asked chalker? I would think he could find out

Oh I definitely know, since I personally built the tracks for Div B and have had lots of discussions with the Div C supervisor about his tracks. But I don't think it would be fair to post the info here where only some of the competitors might see it.

Correct me if i am mistaken, but wasnt it stated that the div C supervisor would be using melamine? If div C was posted, why isnt div B?

chalker wrote:

windu34 wrote: Have you asked chalker? I would think he could find out

Oh I definitely know, since I personally built the tracks for Div B and have had lots of discussions with the Div C supervisor about his tracks. But I don't think it would be fair to post the info here where only some of the competitors might see it.

Can we guess? is it the steel tracks with melamine for Div B?

Hate to double post, but doing it anyways...
Any predictions as to the top vehicle scores?
How many teams do you think will have max mass (2 kg)?
What do you think the top run times will be?
Seeing as how most people doing this event are likely to have a strong physics background, do you think the test will be a significant differentiating factor?
Does anyone know abouy the scores in Maglev? What were the times at nationals (the time specified year, not the max speed year) amd did the test siginificantly differwntiate teams?
What were the masses like?

chalker wrote:

antoine_ego wrote:

windu34 wrote: The national ES for hovercraft will bring his own steel tracks to the national tournament

Lovely

I'm pretty sure he's replaced the metal surface with melamine after having lots of issues with it. Note that the Div C and Div B tracks will be different types.

well this is one clue

windu34 wrote:Hate to double post, but doing it anyways...
Any predictions as to the top vehicle scores?
How many teams do you think will have max mass (2 kg)?
What do you think the top run times will be?
Seeing as how most people doing this event are likely to have a strong physics background, do you think the test will be a significant differentiating factor?
Does anyone know abouy the scores in Maglev? What were the times at nationals (the time specified year, not the max speed year) amd did the test siginificantly differwntiate teams?
What were the masses like?

For top build scores:
probably 25 points for mass
then around 15-25 points for time
so that's about the 40-50 range.

windu34 wrote:Hate to double post, but doing it anyways...
Any predictions as to the top vehicle scores?
How many teams do you think will have max mass (2 kg)?
What do you think the top run times will be?
Seeing as how most people doing this event are likely to have a strong physics background, do you think the test will be a significant differentiating factor?
Does anyone know abouy the scores in Maglev? What were the times at nationals (the time specified year, not the max speed year) amd did the test siginificantly differwntiate teams?
What were the masses like?

This is all speculation.

I guess that, out of 120 teams:

-Slightly more than half will have max mass (I might be completely wrong about this).
-Very few teams will be able to hit the target time with reasonable proficiency (fairly certain).
-Most teams will be in the range of 2-5 seconds away from the target time.
-The test will be a very strong differentiating factor, though I'm not sure in what way (meaning I'm not sure whether by content or speed; basically, I don't have a clue on how the test will be written).
-I have no idea about Maglev scores.

If the track is something new, I think most teams will be away from the target time within the margin of 50 to 10% off. And I echo that few will be within tenths of seconds. That is a combination of luck and astounding accuracy, both factors that are extremely rare and simultaneously almost unattainable.

However, if the track is a very common piece from home depot and ~30% of the practice tracks schools set up are made of the same material, then the time scores will be much closer.

Top Score prediction (not to toot my own horn):
Well... there is a fair bit of luck involved. May I remind you gentlemen, my build score was 49.2, which I achieved using loads of data and intuition.

I think both the Mass score and the Test score will be the leading factors in the victory of a team. Mass score is: (Your mass/highest mass of any team)*25. Should many teams have very light vehicles (using foam trays and computer fans), they have the potential to lose 10-15 points, a fair margin to consider when taking the test. With the 2kg vehicles far in the lead, it's up to the test and the target time. The target time is hard for any team to get reasonably close to, which is why I predict the test score to be the final factor.

windu34 wrote:Hate to double post, but doing it anyways...
Any predictions as to the top vehicle scores?
How many teams do you think will have max mass (2 kg)?
What do you think the top run times will be?
Seeing as how most people doing this event are likely to have a strong physics background, do you think the test will be a significant differentiating factor?
Does anyone know abouy the scores in Maglev? What were the times at nationals (the time specified year, not the max speed year) amd did the test siginificantly differwntiate teams?
What were the masses like?

Alright, so I got my hands on the scoring spreadsheet from 2013. Teams were asked to predict their time before doing their run. The best teams were usually within 0.1 seconds of their target time (to be fair, the highest time I saw was 1.87 seconds predicted). Generally, the top teams seemed to have gotten relatively equal scores on the test, although there was obviously some fluctuation, for example, Troy getting 4 pts higher than everyone else on the test, but coming in 4th because of vehicle score. To be perfectly honest, I think the mass of the vehicle in Maglev was a pretty big factor because Harriton absolutely destroyed everyone with their 7kg mass.

For this year, I predict at least 25% of teams have max mass. It's really just a matter of fan power and skirt design. The best run times will most certainly be at least 24.5/25 and maximum vehicle score of at least 49.3/50. The top teams will have figured out how to ace the build. As for the test, it really depends on the difficulty. The MIT test was the differentiating factor at MIT. Our vehicle score was destroyed by the fact that they had steel tracks with such low friction. One of our teams did relatively poorly on the test, but got 48ish on vehicle so they came in 7th. My team had a low vehicle score of 33ish, but managed to do pretty well on the test, so we came in 8th. The harder the test, the better.