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Albuquerque Area Home Schoolers won both the B and C divisions. Scores are not posted yet. From the awards ceremony it looks like the high school won with 67 points.

Update: NMAA allowed us to compete this year and both our mid-school and high school teams won. The NM Public Education Department ruled in a separate case that the NMAA could not stop a home school team from competing if they had allowed them in the past. This would certainly apply in our situation...

Does your time task "utilize" electricity in ANY WAY (my emphasis) at the end of the timer operation? I would guess based on your description that it does. Will the judges hold the same view? Not sure. But if you want to be safe, I would change it.

I have a question about the timer in my device. The rules state: All transfers take time, but any continuous action designed to take up time must not be electrical. In addition, at State & National adjusting a transfer that utilizes electricity in any way (either at the beginning, middle, or en...

Does that mean the last 5 places all get 0 points? No, if they are DQed, or don't participate they get 0. If they participate, the last 6 places all get 1 point. This system has been in place since we've been doing SO here (last 10 years). I don't know the history. Our regional uses a similar scori...

Well....our high school team really messed up and won state. I was counting on not having to work with these MP rules after this weekend. The kids are excited and one of them wanted to start improving our machine today (day after the competition, we got MP gold). I told him to think about the impro...

Well....our high school team really messed up and won state. I was counting on not having to work with these MP rules after this weekend. The kids are excited and one of them wanted to start improving our machine today (day after the competition, we got MP gold). I told him to think about the improv...

Second to what chalker said. Dissolving salt in water breaks the ionic bonds in the solid. You get something quite different than just salty water. Many substances will dissolve in water and not change form. Salt breaks down into Na+ and Cl-. Should count. We are using it at state this week, but bea...

I apologize for the misidentification. But since we're nitpicking.. I'll nitpick. Another name for a rocket igniter is an 'electric match' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_match). From wikipedia: "Electric matches consist of two parts, a bridgewire and a pyrogen. The bridgewire is a heati...

Whether or not we think the Black Box Rule of Thumb (haha good idea ;) ) seems fair doesn't change whether or not it's in the rules... that's the issue we have here. If it truly should exist, then I believe a clarification should be issued to delineate just how far it goes- otherwise competitors ar...