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Every year I see these teams at Regionals with the EXACT SAME DESIGN and they always get ridiculously high scores. I'd give them the benefit of the doubt, but then I see the rest of their scores, and they're getting last place in basically everything (and I don't mean they just didn't compete - they are legitimately getting last/near-last. The 1st place efficiencies at our regionals are significantly higher than at State or Nationals.

We never bring it up, because we have no proof, but I'm just wondering if this is a problem in other places.

boomvroomshroom wrote:Every year I see these teams at Regionals with the EXACT SAME DESIGN and they always get ridiculously high scores. I'd give them the benefit of the doubt, but then I see the rest of their scores, and they're getting last place in basically everything (and I don't mean they just didn't compete - they are legitimately getting last/near-last. The 1st place efficiencies at our regionals are significantly higher than at State or Nationals.

We never bring it up, because we have no proof, but I'm just wondering if this is a problem in other places.

I doubt they are buying them. In all likelihood they have 1 family that is only interested in the bridge building portion. They find a design published online and have a lot of adult / older sibling help to make it

Some teams like to watch other team's bridges to see what designs are good. This means some teams can see what the first place bridge looked like and copy it.

Ripplestar wrote:Some teams like to watch other team's bridges to see what designs are good. This means some teams can see what the first place bridge looked like and copy it.

Having said that, it's far easier said than done. Just because I've seen bridges scoring hundreds, nay, thousands higher than their competitiors doesn't mean I could go home and replicate them!

Skink wrote:

Ripplestar wrote:Some teams like to watch other team's bridges to see what designs are good. This means some teams can see what the first place bridge looked like and copy it.

Having said that, it's far easier said than done. Just because I've seen bridges scoring hundreds, nay, thousands higher than their competitiors doesn't mean I could go home and replicate them!

You can't easily see the density of the wood a team is using, and when wood is laminated well, you can't tell its more than one piece.

Ha! My boomilevers last year were hollow, you'd never know until you picked it up. Another team did actually show up to a contest with my design (I'll call it that, it had some distinctive features), we beat them.

Then I ended up helping them out anyways and by the team my senior year came round I honestly had just stopped trying that hard... team issues and all, they beat us later on.

Ha! My boomilevers last year were hollow, you'd never know until you picked it up. Another team did actually show up to a contest with my design (I'll call it that, it had some distinctive features), we beat them.

Then I ended up helping them out anyways and by the team my senior year came round I honestly had just stopped trying that hard... team issues and all, they beat us later on.