Tips for a New Supervisor

[EastStroudsburg13]

Hello, builders.

So, I'm supervising Towers at the upcoming Penn Invitational on February 18th. I've been getting pretty acquainted with the rules and I feel relatively prepared. However, I am completely new to supervising a building event, as I never competed in any true builds as a student. I've judged Boomilever before but I fully expect supervising to be a whole different animal.

My question is this: are there any tips some of you experienced builders would have to make the event go more smoothly? This can be in reference to the testing apparatus(es), the judging process, massing, being efficient in transitioning between teams; really, anything you think would be helpful or that you've found is important through your experience.

Thanks!

[Unome]

From my one experience with Bridges at our invitational last year (hopefully I'm not repeating basic things):

- A base plate to put on the scale to rest towers on while massing them. Perhaps a piece of plate glass ~50 cm on each side? (just a random thought that came to me)
- A jig of some sort to measure height. A laser attached to a meterstick or piece of wood seems ideal to me. Maybe a square arch of some sort? idk
- A way to block off visitors from interfering (something more than one line of caution tape). This was our number 2 problem when I was judging (number 1 was the test apparatus was broken ).

[dholdgreve]

Hello, builders.

So, I'm supervising Towers at the upcoming Penn Invitational on February 18th. I've been getting pretty acquainted with the rules and I feel relatively prepared. However, I am completely new to supervising a building event, as I never competed in any true builds as a student. I've judged Boomilever before but I fully expect supervising to be a whole different animal.

My question is this: are there any tips some of you experienced builders would have to make the event go more smoothly? This can be in reference to the testing apparatus(es), the judging process, massing, being efficient in transitioning between teams; really, anything you think would be helpful or that you've found is important through your experience.

Thanks!

Rule #1... Never touch the student's tower, or anything connected to it. Let them move it to and from the scale, prep for set up etc.
Rule #2... Share with all assistants: Never touch the student's tower, or anything connected to it... period
Rule #3... Much more important in towers than bridges or boom. Testing table must be perfectly level and flat before the event begins
Rule #4... Try to provide a sand hopper (automatic Loader) if possible. It will speed up your event, and keep all on schedule.
Rule #5... Keep control, but make it fun for competitors as well as gallery.
Rule #6... Be consistent. If you start the 6:00 clock when the tower touches the table for the first team, do so through the entire competition
Rule #7... Review their score / tier with them when complete, so there is no unpleasant surprises at awards. Let them know if you've had to tier them down, and why.
Rule #8... Have plenty of help... knowledgeable help.
Rule #9... If possible, use medium grit sand blasting sand. It costs about double what play sand does, but has no dust in it. Your students will thank you, ans so will their pulminologist!
Rule #10.. Reread Rules 1 and 2.

[Balsa Man]

That's a good set of rules, Dan.
I’d add one thing to Rule #3- level should be from …right to left, and fore and aft. Then, its not only important to have test base level at the beginning of competition, but throughout the competition. If the test rigs are located on a hard floor (and are leveled using either adjustment of screw leg ends, or shimming –and check ahead of time to determine if bringing shimming material is needed), a rig going out of level is….pretty unlikely. If, as I’ve encountered a couple of times, the floor is carpeted – hopefully not, and if it is, hopefully thin carpeting- then you should check and re-level as needed- a pain, but critical to a fair competition. I’ve always allowed, and recommend you allow, competitors to check with their own levels (or one made available by you). This (and any adjustment when its shown the rig has gone out of level) is not/should not be considered part of the timed 6min testing.

And a quick comment on that timed period- if anything happens during that timed period that in any way impedes students in their setup process – “oh, the load block is….somewhere, oh, over on that desk, let me go get it”, “oops, some sand got spilled during the last run, hang on till we get it collected and in the hopper”, etc., you need to ‘give them credit’ for the time it takes your crew to fix the problem. Its important for the person timing to say clearly when time starts, and I highly recommend a call out at “1 minute to go.”

Other thoughts/suggestions. It is really important that measuring to confirm meeting dimension specs is done precisely. You need to have the tools and process in-place to do this. This is not a trivial task. SO has a sig fig policy students are expected to follow, so I’ve always been, and believe supervisors should be, careful to follow it in judging, too. So, what does that mean- all dimensions to be checked are minimum dimensions- tower has to be at least 50.0/60.0 cm high, span 20 cm square of 29 cm circle. So, IMHO, and I would argue, dimensions for your check tools should be 49.06 (and for sure no more than 50.00), 59.06 (and for sure no more than 60.00), 19.6/<20.0, and 28.6/<29.0. Remember that rulers can vary a bit, so find/use….a good/high quality one.

Having a check-in period (like from 8:00-9:00am), where teams can get ‘spec-checked’ (tier determined), weighed in, and sign up for a time slot really helps the flow. Doing this on a blackboard or poster board helps everyone. Don’t put more time slots in in a given hour than you can comfortably….provide. With a 6 min setup & test limit, that probably means no more than 6 teams per test device. Depending on how many teams competing, you may want to plan for a …15-20 min window after last scheduled hour, to catch folk who ran into sched problems. Also, if the schedule isn’t jammed full, allow flexibility- “this rig is open, anyone ready to test?” Just be clear up front to all what happens if they don’t show up, ready for their scheduled test time.

I strongly recommend having the chains which hang from load blocks marked (color magic marker) for where S-hook should go, for B and, 10cm lower, for C towers. This avoids buckets too close to the floor, and/or up high enough to interfere with sand spout. Have the hanging rig for the bucket…worked out and simple- a way to have an S-hook attached to the center of the bucket handle so it can’t move around.

This is, and IMHO should be a spectator event; spectator-friendly. The test room should have room for test rigs, tower storage, supervisor work space, and spectators. It should be clear which areas spectators are required to stay within, and out of. A thing we have always done that helps spectators, students, and coaches, is that the “sign-up board” (big enough for anyone to see) shows, in addition to team #/ID, time slot, tier, weight of tower, and then, as testing progresses, load carried, and score. Folk know when to be there to see….their closest competitor run, or that amazing 5gr tower tested, etc.

I know there’s….a range of opinion on if or how photography/videography should be limited. I’m at the …open end of that range. At a minimum, parents and coaches should be able to photo/video their students from designated spectator areas, and as long as their location doesn’t interfere with event personnel or other competitors. I personally believe photography/video from spectator areas should not be prohibited.

Judging crews (folk there at the test rig(s) when students are setting up) should be consistent in what they say and don’t say to competitors. Brief explanation of what they have to do, and where the pieces are (bucket, chain, load block, hooks), confirmation on operation of the activating lever- open this direction, close this direction (or by letting go), stop immediately when/if tower breaks, how to use stabilizing sticks, when 6 timed minutes start, when you’ll give them a time check/call-out. Things to avoid are things like, “uh, you better have your partner hold the tower while you’re messing with the bucket hook-up”, “your load block slipped a bit when you hung the bucket, you might want to re-align it”, etc.

Last, I’ve always thought it was an important part of event supervisors/crews to …. help learning (what SO is ultimately about). The extent to which this can be done depends, of course, on the knowledge of you and your crew, and the extent to which you want to try depends on the student. I think this is particularly important for…. teams that are way off ‘the pace’, and want to do better.

So, hope it goes well for you, and the competitors!

[chalker]

Rule #1... Never touch the student's tower, or anything connected to it. Let them move it to and from the scale, prep for set up etc.
Rule #2... Share with all assistants: Never touch the student's tower, or anything connected to it... period
Rule #3... Much more important in towers than bridges or boom. Testing table must be perfectly level and flat before the event begins
Rule #4... Try to provide a sand hopper (automatic Loader) if possible. It will speed up your event, and keep all on schedule.
Rule #5... Keep control, but make it fun for competitors as well as gallery.
Rule #6... Be consistent. If you start the 6:00 clock when the tower touches the table for the first team, do so through the entire competition
Rule #7... Review their score / tier with them when complete, so there is no unpleasant surprises at awards. Let them know if you've had to tier them down, and why.
Rule #8... Have plenty of help... knowledgeable help.
Rule #9... If possible, use medium grit sand blasting sand. It costs about double what play sand does, but has no dust in it. Your students will thank you, ans so will their pulminologist!
Rule #10.. Reread Rules 1 and 2.

Also, since I don't think it was mentioned yet, NEVER TOUCH A COMPETITORS TOWER;) Seriously, we can't emphasize that enough! That really applies to ANY event where the competitors bring something. Far too many event supervisors directly interact with devices and end up breaking them.

Regarding rule #7, note that that is explicitly written into the rules for almost all building events this year (rule 5.x.) in this case.

Whenever possible, ALWAYS let teams test their towers. Even if you know you are going to DQ them for something major. It's much easier to throw out a score than to have to go back and let them test something after an appeal.

Also, I HIGHLY recommend you use the excel scoring sheets and team data sheets available on the Towers event page on soinc.org

[BuildingFriend]

Although I'm newer to the forum and am a competitor at (and at SOUP!) and having run our own invitational before and helping run the previous balsa event (Bridge Building) at Cougar Invitational, I'll try to give some advice . Make sure that you do not need to bring any materials and the school/invitational is providing all of them. It is terrible having missed something for lack of communication. Posting the whole efficiency table/data sheet and either projecting it or keeping it on a board for everyone to see will quell their questions about how previous towers have done and will allow competitors to see how their tower is doing relative to others. As a competitor, the worst part about invitationals is the amount of spectators and how dangerously close they get to breaking towers before testing occurs. Separating competitors from spectators would really speed up the process. In addition, having an on-deck team is helpful for not rushing teams and keeping the process smooth. At invitationals, most teams use invitationals to gauge other teams and innovate upon designs. It is up to you to allow people to take pictures- hopefully you let us as most teams there will be from varied states- but usually, flash off is a requirement at most invitationals. Lastly, it would be great if the testing apparatus (usually a table specifically built to test towers or spanning a structure) was in an open space so one person loading can the on the opposite side of the person stabilizing. This did not occur at Yale and really forced us to load awkwardly. Oh, and one final thing- the supervisor at Yale was really helpful to teams, especially so when he announced the specific score with load held, the mass of tower, efficiency, yes/no bonus, and school. Hope to see you at SOUP!

[baker]

How are super's measuring the height of the towers to make sure they are over 50 or 60 cm? Are they using a tape measure, stick. What's a safe way to do this?

[Chameleon02]

How are super's measuring the height of the towers to make sure they are over 50 or 60 cm? Are they using a tape measure, stick. What's a safe way to do this?

At an invite about 2 months ago, the supervisors made us competitors thread a meter stick through the middle of the tower. (This process was very stressful) This was quite difficult for us, as our tower had a gap of only 3x3 cm at the top. We had to put it in diagonally. Another method I have seen is making some sort of pre-measured stick that is marked at 50 or 60cm. It was a 1/2 inch dowel that had a block on the bottom so it could stand vertically. This was much easier for measuring the height. Usually at invites, I have seen people just hold a meter stick to it, though it is sometimes hard to make a call for something like 59.9 cm.

[baker]

Looks like our region is going to do both C and B teams together in the same place. I have the tower rules for C but not B. Am I correct in assuming that the only difference between the rules is that B has a height of 50 cm or greater. Is this the only diff? I down loaded the 'event score sheets' from the national web site and they look the same except for the 50 cm for B and 60 cm for C.

[Balsa Man]

Correct