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MEGA-CLUTCH ACHIEVEMENT : Started building my first ever bridge at 2AM the day of a local invitational. Had a terrible score but still somehow won. NEWTON-LEIBNIZ ACHIEVEMENT: Pretty regularly happened for hovercraft, being a physics event and all. Also had to derive escape velocity equation for Fe...

I'm thinking something along the lines of a curve like Scrambler had with a 5 gallon bucket, in addition to the reverse and stuff from this year. Curving AND reversing? That sounds...challenging to say the least. If your car moves on a circular arc connecting the start and target points, the cup co...

We ran a time of 8.45 seconds and a distance of 0.5cm to get a score of 9.45 and got 2nd place.

Wait for those predicting 3000+ to medal, is that Div B or C?

antoine_ego wrote:SEPA scores released. Harriton won with a 6.44.

Does anyone know what distance this score was achieved with? If this score was for a 4m distance, that would be insane...

I've been soaking them in 70% rubbing alcohol for the moment. It seems to work for a while, but then the bearing gets sticky and slow again. I've got a set of open bearings on the way, and I'll see if maybe those help at all. On a slightly unrelated note, has anyone had any trouble with chrome steel...

I've been looking into some new bearings for our Nationals mousetrap vehicle. I've found several decent ones, but they are ALL self-lubricating. I'm experimenting with washing out the really thick grease they use to lubricate the bearings with a similar one I have at home by flushing it and soaking ...

I've recently switched over to measuring buckling strength instead of wood density to select tower wood. As most people here probably do, I use a single-finger push down (SFPD) to measure buckling strength. However, I find it difficult to judge when a column of wood is buckling and when it is not. D...

When my mousetrap vehicle goes forward, it follows a relatively straight path. But when it reverses direction, its return path is noticeably more curved/misaligned. I've checked, and I don't see any slipping between the wheels and the ground. If my intuition is correct, a vehicle going forwards then...

Very basic question:

There is no minimum height for the wooden dowel, right? I couldn't find any reference to one in the rules. Having always needed a ~20cm or so high dowel in the past for vehicle-based events, this feels kind of strange to me. Just looking to confirm that this is correct.