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Another rule to possibly change would be the penalizing for substances or materials leaving the devices boundaries. Although I can totally see where this rule was coming from, it was way to hard to judge fairly. For example, a little sand comes out of one teams box unnoticed, while in another case, the same thing happens and it is noticed, and only one of the teams in penalized. At very least the rule should be altered to be more fair in some way.

I have loved this event for the past 2 years and I think it is very well suited for the High School level, however, knowing that it is going to B division next year, it obviously would have to be simplified. I would think that a large number of the tasks would be based on teaching the principles of simple machines. I am not entirely sure what level middle schoolers can handle, but I'm sure they would love a chemical reaction task where they get to play with vinegar and baking soda. You could probably go so far as to shrink the size of the Mission Possibles (unless there is going to be another helium-balloon task). With only 10 tasks, the box could probably be 3/4 or even 1/2 the size it currently is. That would make it easier to cheaply build a nice box, and easier for B div kids to transport. One thing that I really liked about the rules this year was that some of the events essentially had to be done electronically, while others had to be done mechanically. I know that I learned a lot about electronics when I first did Mission Possible, and I think middle schoolers should have a few tasks that effectively require electricity. A task that could make it so that there is no 'ideal' score could be to have a marble roll for as long as possible without any energy added. Kids would have fun making crazy ramps/ tubes. An interesting, but possibly overly difficult final task could be to use pneumatics to inflate something that extends a school flag outside of the box. Higher flag gets you more points. Or perhaps have a glider shoot upward out of the box. Longer duration gets you more points. Looking back at my State Tournament (MN), which I would say has an extremely large range of skill, with some of the worst MN teams being about as poor as you could expect any team to be, last year 4 teams at State did not do Mission Possible, and 5 teams did not do it this year. Now, on initial inspection I would wonder why there was less participation this year than the year before, considering that the rules added some extra, very simple events for people to choose from. The reason, I think, is that those teams that did not want to put much effort into their devices found it more difficult to get a helium balloon than to raise a flag. I saw several Mission Possibles in my state last year that were just a flag attached to a mousetrap. They would do the first and last task and that was it. If you want to encourage the lower end teams to make a device, avoid requiring 'exotic' materials like helium that would be difficult for a team trying to build a device at midnight the night before a competition to obtain.

I agree with paradox about not requiring helium or anything else on would have trouble getting hands on. Also, although vinegar and baking soda would be fun for middle schoolers, it was incredibly annoying that the baking soda and vinegar couldnt be reused (obviously), which meant each time we tested our device, our supplies diminished, and we therefore had to replenish our baking soda and vinegar supply continuously. Because of this, as it was a major limiting factor on how many times we could test our device, I think there shouldnt be any tasks like this.

I COMPLETELY agree about the baking soda and vinegar. It was kinda fun, but we had to be cautious about not wasting the materials.

My school's team (though I was not a part of the event this year) did a very old-school MP, which I'd like to see more teams try. They used no electrical components.

illusionist wrote:I COMPLETELY agree about the baking soda and vinegar. It was kinda fun, but we had to be cautious about not wasting the materials.

We used a bottle of vanilla extract, instead of the giant water bottles other teams were using. One bottle of vinegar and a ziplock bag of baking soda lasted us the entire season. It doesn't take much gas to fill up a balloon. (Setup was a pain, for sure.)

aubrey048 wrote:My school's team (though I was not a part of the event this year) did a very old-school MP, which I'd like to see more teams try. They used no electrical components.

Oh gosh, do you know what they did for their temperature decreasing task, then?

Primate wrote:

aubrey048 wrote:My school's team (though I was not a part of the event this year) did a very old-school MP, which I'd like to see more teams try. They used no electrical components.

Oh gosh, do you know what they did for their temperature decreasing task, then?

I can't recall. I'll ask. The machine really was quite classic Rube-Goldberg. It's pretty remarkable how much they could accomplish by physics alone.

Mechanical advantage concepts and simple machine related objectives involving levers and pulleys would be interesting. I think that should be a focal point of the event, with less electrical integration, and less chemistry.

lllazar wrote:Mechanical advantage concepts and simple machine related objectives involving levers and pulleys would be interesting. I think that should be a focal point of the event, with less electrical integration, and less chemistry.

Exactly!

The electrical stuff has always been my favorite, though =/. There's not a whole lot of Science Olympiad events that seriously use electricity (this and sumo; wind doesn't really count).