Hovercraft B/C

[UltramatrixMan]

Yoooooo I was last time slot too. Were you the guy with the 7.4 volt lipos?

Yup! That was me! If you really remember who I was, I had "Digitos usque secti erunt" on the back of my shirt, the unofficial motto for hovercraft. Hats off to you Marie Murphy, you were 0.3 seconds off. Close, but no cigar. I took the title of best build score!

I was actually off by more than that, our time was 20.5 seconds. However, I only missed two problems on the test. Was your hovercraft affected in any way by the track, or was the track basically the same as the one you were practicing on?

We were off by 0.3 seconds on the time, but missed 3 or 4 problems on the test. Fortunately, we have not had any "Digitos usque secti erunt" LittyWap XD. The track was just mellamine, so I would guess many of the teams had calibrated on it, between the hints posted on the wikis and it just being a common material easily found in 8-foot sections.

[ericlepanda]

Yup! That was me! If you really remember who I was, I had "Digitos usque secti erunt" on the back of my shirt, the unofficial motto for hovercraft. Hats off to you Marie Murphy, you were 0.3 seconds off. Close, but no cigar. I took the title of best build score!

I was actually off by more than that, our time was 20.5 seconds. However, I only missed two problems on the test. Was your hovercraft affected in any way by the track, or was the track basically the same as the one you were practicing on?

We were off by 0.3 seconds on the time, but missed 3 or 4 problems on the test. Fortunately, we have not had any "Digitos usque secti erunt" LittyWap XD. The track was just mellamine, so I would guess many of the teams had calibrated on it, between the hints posted on the wikis and it just being a common material easily found in 8-foot sections.

You were that close? What overall place did you get?

[LittyWap]

Yoooooo I was last time slot too. Were you the guy with the 7.4 volt lipos?

Yup! That was me! If you really remember who I was, I had "Digitos usque secti erunt" on the back of my shirt, the unofficial motto for hovercraft. Hats off to you Marie Murphy, you were 0.3 seconds off. Close, but no cigar. I took the title of best build score!

I was actually off by more than that, our time was 20.5 seconds. However, I only missed two problems on the test. Was your hovercraft affected in any way by the track, or was the track basically the same as the one you were practicing on?

No, our track was entirely unaffected. As stated previously on the forums, I make sure to test on a wide variety of surfaces to ensure I can shoot for an accurate time. Using the data I have on melamine, polished stone, tile, plywood, steel, folding tables, etc, I have multiple formulas to predict the time of my vehicle with an accuracy of 1 second. Having scored within 1 second of the target on the first run (90% of the time, I do), I change the resistance to go for the gold.

[ericlepanda]

Yup! That was me! If you really remember who I was, I had "Digitos usque secti erunt" on the back of my shirt, the unofficial motto for hovercraft. Hats off to you Marie Murphy, you were 0.3 seconds off. Close, but no cigar. I took the title of best build score!

I was actually off by more than that, our time was 20.5 seconds. However, I only missed two problems on the test. Was your hovercraft affected in any way by the track, or was the track basically the same as the one you were practicing on?

No, our track was entirely unaffected. As stated previously on the forums, I make sure to test on a wide variety of surfaces to ensure I can shoot for an accurate time. Using the data I have on melamine, polished stone, tile, plywood, steel, folding tables, etc, I have multiple formulas to predict the time of my vehicle with an accuracy of 1 second. Having scored within 1 second of the target on the first run (90% of the time, I do), I change the resistance to go for the gold.

Does your skirt help with differently sloped tracks? Our hovercraft doesn't have a skirt, so it is greatly affected by any change in slope but isn't affected by track surfaces or track walls.

[UltramatrixMan]

I was actually off by more than that, our time was 20.5 seconds. However, I only missed two problems on the test. Was your hovercraft affected in any way by the track, or was the track basically the same as the one you were practicing on?

No, our track was entirely unaffected. As stated previously on the forums, I make sure to test on a wide variety of surfaces to ensure I can shoot for an accurate time. Using the data I have on melamine, polished stone, tile, plywood, steel, folding tables, etc, I have multiple formulas to predict the time of my vehicle with an accuracy of 1 second. Having scored within 1 second of the target on the first run (90% of the time, I do), I change the resistance to go for the gold.

Does your skirt help with differently sloped tracks? Our hovercraft doesn't have a skirt, so it is greatly affected by any change in slope but isn't affected by track surfaces or track walls.

How does your hovercraft lift without a skirt? I think you can probably figure out what place we got if you dig a little so I'll let you figure that out . It's amazing that you were able to acquire 8-foot pieces of that many different surfaces LittyWap, and even more so that you were able to create a formula from all of that raw data. Congrats!

[ericlepanda]

No, our track was entirely unaffected. As stated previously on the forums, I make sure to test on a wide variety of surfaces to ensure I can shoot for an accurate time. Using the data I have on melamine, polished stone, tile, plywood, steel, folding tables, etc, I have multiple formulas to predict the time of my vehicle with an accuracy of 1 second. Having scored within 1 second of the target on the first run (90% of the time, I do), I change the resistance to go for the gold.

Does your skirt help with differently sloped tracks? Our hovercraft doesn't have a skirt, so it is greatly affected by any change in slope but isn't affected by track surfaces or track walls.

How does your hovercraft lift without a skirt? I think you can probably figure out what place we got if you dig a little so I'll let you figure that out . It's amazing that you were able to acquire 8-foot pieces of that many different surfaces LittyWap, and even more so that you were able to create a formula from all of that raw data. Congrats!

Oh we just have a very strong fan (970 pa static pressure I think). Underneath the hovercraft there is a foam edge that wraps around the whole thing, its about one centimeter tall and one centimeter wide, which sorta helps trap the air in but doesn't function like a true flexible skirt. Also, I didn't notice that you're also from Illinois. Congrats on the overall first place finish!

[Ashernoel]

Oh we just have a very strong fan (970 pa static pressure I think). Underneath the hovercraft there is a foam edge that wraps around the whole thing, its about one centimeter tall and one centimeter wide, which sorta helps trap the air in but doesn't function like a true flexible skirt. Also, I didn't notice that you're also from Illinois. Congrats on the overall first place finish!

scioly bringing us closer together

[LittyWap]

I was actually off by more than that, our time was 20.5 seconds. However, I only missed two problems on the test. Was your hovercraft affected in any way by the track, or was the track basically the same as the one you were practicing on?

No, our track was entirely unaffected. As stated previously on the forums, I make sure to test on a wide variety of surfaces to ensure I can shoot for an accurate time. Using the data I have on melamine, polished stone, tile, plywood, steel, folding tables, etc, I have multiple formulas to predict the time of my vehicle with an accuracy of 1 second. Having scored within 1 second of the target on the first run (90% of the time, I do), I change the resistance to go for the gold.

Does your skirt help with differently sloped tracks? Our hovercraft doesn't have a skirt, so it is greatly affected by any change in slope but isn't affected by track surfaces or track walls.

Yes, our skirt is essential to our accuracy. Ours can also operate without a skirt, but the skirt, as you mentioned, greatly reduces the number of fluke runs and increases the accuracy. Because my skirt was instrumental to the buildscore of 49.88, I will refuse to provide extensive descriptions, but I will mention that it is neither a wall skirt, not a bag skirt, somewhere inbetween. Our skirt has no issue with sloped tracks, so long as the dip in the middle of the table is less than half an inch.

[LittyWap]

No, our track was entirely unaffected. As stated previously on the forums, I make sure to test on a wide variety of surfaces to ensure I can shoot for an accurate time. Using the data I have on melamine, polished stone, tile, plywood, steel, folding tables, etc, I have multiple formulas to predict the time of my vehicle with an accuracy of 1 second. Having scored within 1 second of the target on the first run (90% of the time, I do), I change the resistance to go for the gold.

Does your skirt help with differently sloped tracks? Our hovercraft doesn't have a skirt, so it is greatly affected by any change in slope but isn't affected by track surfaces or track walls.

How does your hovercraft lift without a skirt? I think you can probably figure out what place we got if you dig a little so I'll let you figure that out . It's amazing that you were able to acquire 8-foot pieces of that many different surfaces LittyWap, and even more so that you were able to create a formula from all of that raw data. Congrats!

Thank you! I was able to successfully setup a nice track in my basement, and that was pretty key to all the data I had collected. Every day after school, I would go into my basement, get four points of data, plug the batteries back in, and start my afternoon. Luckily for me, I had a large section of melamine covered wood and plywood lying around, I got the "polished surface" data (like the material used at MIT) by running the vehicle on my kitchen counter, and I got the portable table data from a table that was kicking around at my school. Scioly is a daily commitment, and practicing every day makes it that much easier!

[UltramatrixMan]

Does your skirt help with differently sloped tracks? Our hovercraft doesn't have a skirt, so it is greatly affected by any change in slope but isn't affected by track surfaces or track walls.

How does your hovercraft lift without a skirt? I think you can probably figure out what place we got if you dig a little so I'll let you figure that out . It's amazing that you were able to acquire 8-foot pieces of that many different surfaces LittyWap, and even more so that you were able to create a formula from all of that raw data. Congrats!

Thank you! I was able to successfully setup a nice track in my basement, and that was pretty key to all the data I had collected. Every day after school, I would go into my basement, get four points of data, plug the batteries back in, and start my afternoon. Luckily for me, I had a large section of melamine covered wood and plywood lying around, I got the "polished surface" data (like the material used at MIT) by running the vehicle on my kitchen counter, and I got the portable table data from a table that was kicking around at my school. Scioly is a daily commitment, and practicing every day makes it that much easier!

Sounds like your house turned into a hovercraft command center much the same as mine XD. I can't say I was quite as faithful to hovercraft as you were with other events and such, but like you said the collection of heaps of data was instrumental to time scores within 1 second. I will say that one time my partner and I had to move one of our tracks from one house to another, and a car was not available so we non-shadily carried it down the street... there were some odd looks thrown at us .