Flying Bird B/C [Trial]

[jander14indoor]

Well, the rules haved been written by many people, not just the owner of that site (if they were involved at all, this has been a NC driven event, that site owner is out of NY).

As to having four qualifying designs, note, three only vary by color. And the rules are VERY open as to requirements, they only have to weigh 3 gm, no other criteria except materials. No span limit, etc. And qualifying doesn't mean competitive. The min weight is 3 gm and these weigh 1/4 oz or more, about 7-8 gm. ALL flying events are strongly degraded by excess weight, don't expect those weights to be to be competitive!!

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

[quizbowl]

What times seem competitive?

[chalker7]

What times seem competitive?

That's really hard to say. It really hasn't been tested very much so far.
As Jeff said above these rules are incredibly open but ornithropters are also incredibly difficult to build. The national record is a little bit more than 20 minutes, but that ornithropter weighed probably 1.5 grams and was flown and built by one of the best flyers in the country. I imagine a couple of teams will be able to get over 5 minutes with these specs if they dedicate a lot of time to building and practicing before nationals. However, I also imagine the vast majority of teams will be below 15 seconds since it is just such a challenging event. I think in North Carolina years past the winners were in the 30-45s range.

[yogoperson]

What times seem competitive?

That's really hard to say. It really hasn't been tested very much so far.
As Jeff said above these rules are incredibly open but ornithropters are also incredibly difficult to build. The national record is a little bit more than 20 minutes, but that ornithropter weighed probably 1.5 grams and was flown and built by one of the best flyers in the country. I imagine a couple of teams will be able to get over 5 minutes with these specs if they dedicate a lot of time to building and practicing before nationals. However, I also imagine the vast majority of teams will be below 15 seconds since it is just such a challenging event. I think in North Carolina years past the winners were in the 30-45s range.

That's going to be hard to beat, a challenge. XD

EDIT:
I heard that you can't get a medal for this event, is that true? I know for sure that trial events won't count towards the team overall score, though.

[ivomitrainbows]

If anyone is curious, I am doing this event with HappySciencePie and for our first ornithopter, we built one of the ones off of the ornithopter website (the black bird). It weighed 4.3 gm I believe. I don't know about the others, but both the black bird and the phoenix (which is the same design as the black bird, just different colors) shouldn't be crazy heavy.

[iYOA]

what times have you been getting?

[jjnv]

Will the official rules be used to judge the demo event? It sounds like only flying time matters from reading the updates on the NSO website.

Do we need to sign up for this event or it is open all day.

[fleet130]

This website is an unofficial resource with no connection to Science Olympiad Inc, or the national tournament organizers. You must contact the National Tournament organizers for information concerning that tournament. Start by reviewing the Rules Clarifications and FAQson the official Science Olympiad Website. There may be additional information on the official National Tournament website.

[HappySciencePie]

Does anybody know how to actually make it fly? I've been trying, but I don't know if I'm winding or letting it go right or anything.

[iYOA]

How did you guys do? What were your opinions on how the event was run at nats?
We were kinda unlucky because while we were winding, the ornithopter broke. The assistants let us repair it. However, the rubber band got stuck by the time it was about 30 ft in the air-something that had never happened before. So our ornithopter fell down and snapped one of its wings. Our flight time was "only" 20.4 seconds because of this. Since the flight was over 15 seconds, we qualified for the finals in which we were told that they would take the second official flight. I spent most of the day in the McClain building repairing the ornithopter. When we went to the finals, only 5 teams showed up and our bird flew for 37.5 sec which was what we had expected. That was good enough to get second but it turned out that the judge had decided the flight times at the finals would not be official. Instead we got a $5 gift card to the union south LOL.

Since I never had time to use my gift card I am willing to sell it for $6 (includes shipping and handling)