The Best of 2024

This is a collection of pictures and videos of devices that placed in the top ten at the 2024 National Tournament at Michigan State University. Feel free to add more pictures and/or videos of devices. If possible, please include a description about your device. Because everyone benefits when we share, devices that did not place in the top ten are sometimes allowed.

The Best of Nationals pages highlight the best devices for building events from recent national tournaments. All photos and videos of devices on these pages are submitted by users.

Air Trajectory (Division C)

1st Place

This Air Trajectory device, shared by _.falcon. (The Honored One) on Discord, was built by Solon High School and placed 1st at the 2024 National Tournament and 4th at the Ohio State Tournament. The build featured a barrel made from 2-inch PVC and a vertical drop column made from 4-inch PVC, constructed to within 2 cm of the 75 cm maximum height limit. A 2.5 kg drop weight was used. The base was made from a constructional polymer, with caulking and additional weights added to prevent the device from sliding during launches. Caulking was also used to seal joints, including a modified T-fitting. The device included 40 discrete settings for drop height and 26 adjustment angles for the barrel. The team reported completing between 12,000 and 15,000 practice shots with this build.

2nd Place

This device was built by Peter Wang (pee_trrrrrrrrr on Discord) and Andy Li, the lone two senior competitors for Novi High School (C12) in the 2024 season. Our highest score all season was 7170 at States. At Nationals, we scored 6930. The close target (5.3 meters in front) was off by 141 mm, the far target (7.7 meters in front, 1.3 meters to the right) was off by 329 mm, and both buckets (8 meters in front, 1.77 meters to the left) were made. Though the far target error is quite large, we treated it as a calibration shot for the buckets since the same setting (which happened to be our maximum setting) was to be used for the buckets as well. We recognized buckets were crucial to placement, so this felt like the obvious decision in order to prioritize bucket accuracy. Coming into the season, we had no remote idea that we would be able to compete at Nationals 2024. But when that opportunity was awarded, we definitely gave it our all!!! Here is the link to the youtube video of our Nationals run: https://youtu.be/EIu7xkJxR6w.