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Mystery Architecture B: At the beginning of the event, teams will be given a bag of building materials and instructions for designing and building a device that can be tested.

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Mystery Architecture Test Exchange 2018

Past Threads: 2017 (Trial), 2018

HI, I had a question on the arches and tunnels. Is there any information on what exactly is expected of these structures? For example, would the arches be free-standing, or as part of a bridge for example? If the primary dimension of the tunnel is the longest portion of covered part, then what is its base? Anyone have any ideas?

This is basically like Write it Do it for the doers

mystarch2019 wrote:HI, I had a question on the arches and tunnels. Is there any information on what exactly is expected of these structures? For example, would the arches be free-standing, or as part of a bridge for example? If the primary dimension of the tunnel is the longest portion of covered part, then what is its base? Anyone have any ideas?

Second this question. After coaching this event last year, I am a hard time visualizing the structures for this year:

What is the difference between an ELEVATED bridge and last year? Is it that this year they are going to always add the hight to the primary measurement vs. just the length?
For the Arch, is this really the same as a bridge but measuring to the apex of the bottom supports?
For the Tunnel, I can't imagine how this may be run. Seems to me the only limiting factor is the "covering" that will be used to enclose the tunnel. But understand how this will be differentiated if there is no load.

Yes I know part of the challenge of the event are the unknows - but without having some understanding of the types of builds, it is very hard to practice and know what to learn.
Thanks for any insight.

Yeah, I don't really get it either. But I found a few old examples..... would these help?

https://youtu.be/XxDzKotw42Y
https://www.forsyth.k12.ga.us/cms/lib3/ ... ecture.ppt
https://youtu.be/o2SZNAOfJj0?list=PLiTU ... aKrk_Ut5bk

The rules manual says "If a cantilever is to be built, the event supervisor will supply the fulcrum, and provide a counterbalance." What are examples of a fulcrum and counterbalance? Would it be reasonable to practice with the edge of a table and a heavy book?

The rules manual says that for a tunnel, the Primary Dimension could be the measurement of the longest continuously enclosed portion of the tunnel. What does enclosed mean? If you are building with popsicle sticks, there are gaps between the sticks? Is that ok?

shri wrote:The rules manual says that for a tunnel, the Primary Dimension could be the measurement of the longest continuously enclosed portion of the tunnel. What does enclosed mean? If you are building with popsicle sticks, there are gaps between the sticks? Is that ok?

My plan for coaching this is to give them some kind of covering as well - either paper, a plastic bag or aluminum foil. Then we can measure the entire enclosed portion. I cannot think of another way this will work. And then to test it - maybe something like passing a ping pong ball attached to the end of a ruler through the tunnel.

Would love to hear other thoughts.

shri wrote:The rules manual says "If a cantilever is to be built, the event supervisor will supply the fulcrum, and provide a counterbalance." What are examples of a fulcrum and counterbalance? Would it be reasonable to practice with the edge of a table and a heavy book?

I guess that a edge of a table would be okay but I think that a heavy book is too heavy, maybe a phone?

Cow481 wrote:

shri wrote:The rules manual says "If a cantilever is to be built, the event supervisor will supply the fulcrum, and provide a counterbalance." What are examples of a fulcrum and counterbalance? Would it be reasonable to practice with the edge of a table and a heavy book?

I guess that a edge of a table would be okay but I think that a heavy book is too heavy, maybe a phone?

Thanks for the response!
If the counterbalance is light, that already puts a bound on the length of the cantilever. If the objective is to build the longest cantilever that can bear the given loaded, I feel the weight of the counterbalance should not matter.