Ceiling at Nationals

[chalker7]

Mounds View's helicopter got stuck in the rafters, which was pretty frustrating for our helicopter people who had put so much effort into their Chinook, but we realize it was out of our control and is just one of the unlucky things that can happen to any team at any Science Olympiad competition.

Story of my life :T
I really wish there were some way I could have watched some of those flights... Helicopter has been my favorite flight event and I'm sad to see it go I would have loved to see Troy's and other flights which placed.

Chalker7 took pictures of everyone with their copters, so hopefully he'll post them.

I'm not allowed to post the pictures, they were taken only for (potential, we had none) arbitration and reference purposes at the explicit request of Gerard.

I can say that I was highly impressed with both the variety of designs and the overall quality of construction every year. Also, kudos to everyone for dealing with the ceiling situation and the (admittedly less than ideal) compromise launching area in a civilized and respectful manner. I wasn't happy with it either, we worked with UCF to try and get the side gyms but they were under the control of a different department from the Venue and it just wasn't going to happen. For what it's worth, 5 of the top 6 teams launched from the hallway area.

[Lily Essence]

The only quip I had about the hallway venue vs gym thing...

Did teams that fly from the smooth ceiling get a sort of "additional time" if their helicopter flew over the side of the balcony and went down to the gym floor? I feel like the time would have stopped when it went past the horizontal plane marking the balcony floor... if this is the case, then please ignore my post. Else, I would've been just a little disgruntled that I may have been able to add a few more seconds to my flight and medal by launching off the side since my helicopter doesn't fly high enough to get stuck the ceiling...

[chalker7]

The only quip I had about the hallway venue vs gym thing...

Did teams that fly from the smooth ceiling get a sort of "additional time" if their helicopter flew over the side of the balcony and went down to the gym floor? I feel like the time would have stopped when it went past the horizontal plane marking the balcony floor... if this is the case, then please ignore my post. Else, I would've been just a little disgruntled that I may have been able to add a few more seconds to my flight and medal by launching off the side since my helicopter doesn't fly high enough to get stuck the ceiling...

Yes, but with several reservations.
First, the rules state that time stops when the helicopter touches the floor, is supported by anything other than the rotors or the officials otherwise determine the flight to be over. This is not the AMA and there is already enough subjectivity in determining when a helicopter gets hung up, I didn't want to add another level of subjectivity about determining when a slowly descending helicopter passes the plane of the floor.
Second, the rules explicitly prevent steering. Thus, if any team willfully caused their helicopter to move into the open area, that would have been a violation and an illegal flight. The teams that flew in the hallway were warned about this behavior and the timing crews were vigilant about it.