Scioly.org

olympiaddict wrote:Can someone point me in the direction of any relevant written rules that explain the black box concept? thanks

Almost all of the confusion mentioned here comes from the fact that the "blackbox" stuff is not in the rules...it is, apparently, just how supervisors have judged this event in the past, and thus how they are likely to judge it this year. The rules say 'direct' energy transfers are what count. How the blackbox concept works is what is scored are energy input and outputs into and out of storebought objects. If you aren't using a storebought object (eg circuits you make yourself), then theoretically you can count the intermediary energy transfers. In the end, for your first competition you are going to have to choose whether you want to go along with enough...after that, I presume that you will know how supervisors are doing things (although hopefully once competitions start in general, we can see that on these boards).

Each of the five Basic Energy Forms may be used or scoreable transfers up to three times, but must transfer to a different Basic Energy Form than previously scored.

How do you guys interpret this?

Maybe the blackbox question is already spelled out in the rules, to some extent at least. Check rule 3g. You can't see the chemical reaction inside a battery, although you'll probably see the result of the flow of electrons just fine. To me, this means that when you trigger a switch to close a circuit, it is mechanical to electrical only. Lighting a match is visible. So if you energize a nichrome wire which lights a match, it should be Electrical to Thermal to Chemical and then to Thermal or EM, depending on what you do with the lit match.

XJcwolfyX wrote:Each of the five Basic Energy Forms may be used or scoreable transfers up to three times, but must transfer to a different Basic Energy Form than previously scored.

How do you guys interpret this?

Let's use chemical as the starting energy. The first time chemical is transferred to one of the other four forms, you get 30 points. The second time chemical is transferred, in order to get 20 points, it can only be to one of the three forms that you haven't yet transferred to. If it is transferred to the same form as the first time, you get zero points. Then if you got 30 and 20 points for transfers from chemical to two other forms, in order to get 10 points for a third transfer, you'd have to transfer to one of the two remaining forms. This is how I read it at least.

I'm not so sure about the application of rule 3G in that sense, although I think it's interesting.
A motor transferring electrical to mechanical isn't technically visible, it happens inside the motor, but I think we agree that's legal. I don't see that as different from a battery in terms of whether it's visible, and I'm concerned about saying you can see the result of electrons because that can be applied very loosely, I would say you can see the results of chemical in the battery by seeing the result of the electrons.
Also, how is any thermal transfer visible? You don't actually "see" heat but instead see light from incandescence etc.
Personally I think that this rule is just to make sure it's possible for the judge to see what is going on in the device, i.e. transfers can't be hidden away closed up in boxes. I think it means that the parts of the device that transfers the energy must be able to be seen by the judge. If a judge sees a motor, a battery, etc. they can figure out with high confidence what's going on, as opposed to "yeah, trust me, there's a transfer in this box, for real" haha
I think this is an interesting thought though.

So, we have all transfer types except for the EM=>T or EM=>M figured out in a reliable manner. Has anyone figured out how to do this.

Also, I was wondering if one could use the blackbox rule to create these two transfers by EM=>blackbox=>T/M and thus have EM=>T/M scored.

Are you all sure you read it that way? Can't it be interpreted to say you can't go from ... for example, electrical to mechanical to electrical?

Also, some of the transfers are quite impossible. There are only like 2 transfers that are possible with some of the forms.

XJcwolfyX wrote:Are you all sure you read it that way? Can't it be interpreted to say you can't go from ... for example, electrical to mechanical to electrical?

I think given the initial clause that "Each of the five Basic Energy Forms may be used for scoreable transfers up to three times," when they say "but must transfer to a different Basic Energy Form than previously scored," that refers to each of those three possible times. So it's not like you can't transfer back to the same form like you were thinking, it's that you can't transfer from form X to form Y twice, you'd have to go to another form Z.

plaid suit guy2 wrote:So, we have all transfer types except for the EM=>T or EM=>M figured out in a reliable manner. Has anyone figured out how to do this.

Also, I was wondering if one could use the blackbox rule to create these two transfers by EM=>blackbox=>T/M and thus have EM=>T/M scored.

Yeah those EM ones are tough. For EM -> T though, I think halogen bulbs would work. They're used for heaters like this and I think they give off primarily IR radiation. The problem is finding something that'll run off <10VDC. Plus the transfer time would be pretty subject to the surrounding environment. It doesn't even need to be halogen though, focusing a really bright light would probably work too.
Not sure if EM->M is actually possible. Sorta extreme, but I was considering phototaxic organisms (lol AP Bio).

Idk about your blackbox idea, I think the rule wouldn't extend to such high level devices, plus going from EM, rule 3.i would probably get in the way.

JimY wrote:

XJcwolfyX wrote:Each of the five Basic Energy Forms may be used or scoreable transfers up to three times, but must transfer to a different Basic Energy Form than previously scored.

How do you guys interpret this?

Let's use chemical as the starting energy. The first time chemical is transferred to one of the other four forms, you get 30 points. The second time chemical is transferred, in order to get 20 points, it can only be to one of the three forms that you haven't yet transferred to. If it is transferred to the same form as the first time, you get zero points. Then if you got 30 and 20 points for transfers from chemical to two other forms, in order to get 10 points for a third transfer, you'd have to transfer to one of the two remaining forms. This is how I read it at least.

Usual caveat about this not being the official place for clarifications, etc. etc.

There are 5 basic energy forms, thus you have a total of 20 possible types of transfers to choose from (5 forms times 4 possible other forms to transfer to) For example:
Elec -> Mech
Elec -> Therm
Elec -> Chem
Elec -> EMS

However, note that in 5.k-m that there are max points listed, thus you can only get points for a max of 15 transfers (5 first times, 5 second times, 5 third times). Thus you can only pick 3 out of the 4 items in the list above to include for points in your device, and you can't just pick one line and do it 3 times (e.g. you can't get points for 3 Elec -> Mech transfers). Same applies for the other 16 possible combinations.

chalker, how soon do you think we can expect clarifications/faq's on the black box, commercial battery etc., and conversion vs. triggering controversies?