Scioly.org

The way the rules are written under 3.b "The launching force must be entirely supplied by the gravitational potential energy from a falling mass less than or equal to 3.5kg (Div C); 5kg (Div B).... This leads me to believe that whatever mass is in use at the time of launch must fulfill the wei...

Northridge High School (Middlebury, IN) will be hosting our 18th Annual Invitational on Jan 13, 2024. This will be an in person B/C event. The fee is $50 per team, but this fee is waved for schools that are new to SO (2 years of existence or less). More info can be found at www.northridgesoinvitatio...

We hope to have some videos up next week or so to help folks.

If you want to use a different mass container to run the event, you are more than welcome to according to the rules. The key being that it fits in the 15 cm cube. I would not encourage a can with an open top, as depending on what you are using for mass in the can, it can fly out as you swing. I also...

Northridge will be Jan 15, 2022, Both B and C.

There were designs for Scrambler that use the falling weight to stretch springs, and then used the springs to launch the car. Presumably you could construct a ballista along similar lines. That sounds like it's not so much powered by the weight as it is the springs, but if this was allowed would it...

The point size is never really spelled out in the rules. I judge this quite a bit, and generally use a standard point sharpie marker for the point. Having judged the event this year, I do appreciate the teams that use something bold to make the point. It is easier to see on the video.

Too be perfectly honest with you, I was wondering that myself. Ballistas by definition are torsion based machines. They store energy in the limbs of the "bow." I suppose a counterweight version would store energy into the limbs with a falling weight. I have judge StC several times over the...

I think where you run into issues is with rule 3 iv. That an initial falling weight is what raises the object up the incline plane, but is also what drives the pulley. As a matter of fact you could take the incline plane out all together, and the pulley would in theory still work.

Um not really. I edited the email to only include the interesting stuff: Regional Tournaments will be run using a satellite format where the events will be run virtually and delivered to the students on-line at their school. If the conditions of the pandemic allow, we will run a hybrid format where...