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My design had no skirt and relied on a "biggest, baddest fan" and I still got second heh heh heh


although it barely hovered and my time could be messed up by any tiny bump in the track

ericlepanda wrote:My design had no skirt and relied on a "biggest, baddest fan" and I still got second heh heh heh


although it barely hovered and my time could be messed up by any tiny bump in the track

Case in point! There's more than one way to skin a cat. Congratulations! You must have done decently well on the test to get 2nd place overall.

Hello,

I helped supervise Hovercraft B at Nationals last weekend with Audrey Carson from Ohio. I am not entirely comfortable sharing many raw scores that can be aligned with specific teams but I did calculate the following summary statistics on the data from the 60 competing teams at nationals and in communications with the committee chairperson received permission to share:

Mass Score
Minimum: 0
Median: 12.44
Maximum: 25.00
Mean: 12.77
Q1: 0.00
Q3: 24.74
IQR: 24.74
Standard Deviation: 11.03

Time Score
Minimum: 0.00
Median 10.20
Maximum: 24.88
Mean: 10.77
Q1: 0.00
Q3: 21.26
IQR: 21.26
Standard Deviation: 10.22

Exam Raw Scores
Out of 28 Points
Minimum: 1
Median: 13
Maximum: 23
Mean: 12.80
Q1: 8.00
Q3: 18.00
IQR: 10.00
Standard Deviation: 6.18

Exam Scores
Scaled Out of 50
Minimum: 2.17
Median: 28.26
Maximum: 50.00
Mean: 27.83
Q1: 17.83
Q3: 39.13
IQR: 21.74
Standard Deviation: 13.44

Final Scores
Minimum: 2.17
Median: 50.77
Maximum: 99.64
Mean: 51.36
Q1: 28.20
Q3: 72.63
IQR: 44.43
Standard Deviation: 26.77

Note that this data does contradict some of the comments people have made; for example, the top exam score had five questions wrong. For specifics on the test and key, I encourage you to invest in the Nationals Test resources available from the National Office next fall....I will not be addressing specific questions on this forum.

I was particularly impressed with the distribution of final scores...this was not intended but instead was an interesting statistical observation. Note that Q1 was quite close to 25% (28.20/100) and Q3 was quite close to 75% (72.63/100) with the min and max scores also close to the possible minimum and maximum scores. Overall, there was a good distribution of scores throughout all 60 teams.

Thank you to everybody who competed for an exciting day and congratulations to not only the medalists but everybody who competed! It is a huge honor to qualify for the national tournament and I am always impressed with not only the level of competition but also the high level of sportsmanship showed by all competitors, coaches, parents, and spectators. Congratulations to all on a great season and I hope that everybody has a wonderful summer season!

Are the Div C scores going to be released as well? Interested to know the breakdown of the top teams.

fn2187 wrote:Are the Div C scores going to be released as well? Interested to know the breakdown of the top teams.

Typically scores are only posted on scioly.org if there's an event supervisor active (which, for Hovercraft C, I don't think there is), and even then not much more than above gets posted. They'll most likely be in the the test packets released in September though.

(which we will definitely be getting)

I've talked to some of the best hovercraft competitors in my state about their designs - almost all of them used a basic bag skirt, the same blower fan described in this forum, NiMH batteries which most teams use, yada yada yada. Barring major changes, the most important thing seems to be practice. There are certainly a few design issues which can decrease consistency - for example, if the skirt expands out beyond the sides of the hovercraft, it can run and cause inconsistent friction. However, once those are mitigated, teams just need to get a lot of times on a lot of surfaces, as LittyWap can attest. I hope that the rules for next year still reward teams for practicing and testing a lot, but I hope hovercraft will not turn into one of those meta events where every single top team has the same design. I would also love to see some points for making graphs of time scores on different surfaces - this seems to be a perfect event for that type of information, seeing as AFAIK it replaced Air Trajectory.

Any ideas what changes are coming to this event next year?