Texas 2013

[caseyotis]

I think that Beckondorff really has to step their game up with the building events if they want to make Top Ten at Nationals again this year. .-. But congratulations, everyone!

[Angstrom]

Hmm.



Which one of those graphs looks more plateau-y? I would say it's 2012. In 2012, you have two teams and a very long plateau. It's tempting to say the same of 2013, with three teams, but that's not true - the plateau starts at team #6. Teams 4 and 5 placed decidedly below teams 1, 2, and 3, but they're definitely in the top tier.

The main difference between the 2012 graph and the 2013 graph are the top and the bottom. 2013 had more teams (5) make the top tier than last year (2), and also saw the emergence of a bottom tier. That's what we should be worrying about - the bottom tier. It's becoming more and more of an open game at the top, making it fun and competitive for the better teams (at the expense of some predictability and stability, but who needs that) and in general a better State field. But because it's a zero-sum game, those points have to go somewhere - and rather than going towards all of the teams fairly equally, it looks like they all went to the bottom 6 or so. Which is a regrettable trend fun-wise, although I suppose relieving for middle-tier teams.

I suppose it'd be a good idea to do an r^2 on the two to see which is more linear, and to extend to even further back years. But I don't want to spend my entire afternoon on this.

[sofan]

Did anyone else think that some of the Friday events weren't run very well? I mean, the MagLev test was a copy of an Invitational (from this site, no less), and I think there may have been a faulty setup in Boomilever. Some teams (including ours) tested their boomilevers on the block on the far right, and many of them broke under the weight of the bucket alone. Since our team had built an identical one that held about 2/3 of the weight a few days earlier, I thought this was a bit fishy...

Also, does anyone in B Division know how many teams were placed in tier 2 in Mousetrap Vehicle? Ours got 23rd out of 30 after staying inside the lines the whole time, which our team thought was strange after hearing that half or more of the teams in some previous competitions had gone outside the lines and supposedly been placed in tier 2.

Yeah. For maglev, they gave people a varying starting distance before the photogates, letting the vehicle accelerate before the timed portion. While this certainly helped our vehicle score, it probably gave some teams an unfair advantage and our time prediction went out the window. I don't know if the 15 foot ceiling for gliders was announced beforehand, but that might have screwed some teams over as well.

Yeah, we had planned on that since it didn't say anywhere in the rules that the car had to be timed from a dead stop. But I think it's something that should be cleared up next year. It really favors people with 8-ft tracks.

I also heard that Picture This used words out of an English Dictionary... I certainly hope that isn't true...

Why on Earth did they do Storm the Castle outside in the gusting winds? I think there was plenty of room to do it inside and not screw up so many teams.

There are also some Saturday events that need some work too... It might be just me, but this might have been the least-organized State competition in a while.

I didnt hear about picture this using words out of an english dictionary. But, the words were insane. Nobody on our team knew the words. If there is anyone from woodcreek that would like to share the amount of words the got correctly,I would apprectate it. Others can also share their stressful experience at state doing pic this. Thanks to everyone who shares!

[2win]

It might be just me, but this might have been the least-organized State competition in a while.

I wholeheartedly agree.

And like, this is minor in comparison to the wind problem for Storm the Castle, but one of their weights was actually >15cm tall, which kind of screwed my team over because the guys weren't prepared for that (although it was kind of the guys' fault for not leaving extra space.) But when we went to ask to measure the weight's height, the proctor took it and put it in the 15cm cube... diagonally... Not saying he was wrong and we were right, but really, that was just super cheesy.

And div. B should look out for Cinco, they look really good right now.

[GeoChamp96]

[/quote]I didnt hear about picture this using words out of an english dictionary. But, the words were insane. Nobody on our team knew the words. If there is anyone from woodcreek that would like to share the amount of words the got correctly,I would apprectate it. Others can also share their stressful experience at state doing pic this. Thanks to everyone who shares![/quote]

I could be wrong since I'm Division C and have never done Picture This, but I seem to recall hearing our Division B team for that event saying that they got 7 words, and they ended up getting 4th place. I also heard that a lot of teams were getting something like 3 words.

I'm glad the teams in both divisions seem to be more evenly spread out now. There seem to be multiple teams that could potentially have a shot at the top 2 next year (given enough work), whereas it was kind of a runaway for the top 2 teams or so last year.

[jlee7x2]

It might be just me, but this might have been the least-organized State competition in a while.

I wholeheartedly agree.

And like, this is minor in comparison to the wind problem for Storm the Castle, but one of their weights was actually >15cm tall, which kind of screwed my team over because the guys weren't prepared for that (although it was kind of the guys' fault for not leaving extra space.) But when we went to ask to measure the weight's height, the proctor took it and put it in the 15cm cube... diagonally... Not saying he was wrong and we were right, but really, that was just super cheesy.

And div. B should look out for Cinco, they look really good right now.

I saw that and I agree, that was pretty messed up what they did - it's their fault for not using the correct size hook as shown on the scioly tutorial for making a CW.

I also don't think they enforced the energy rule that they clarified on the website well at all either. They looked to see if the arm was not moving while in the LOCKED POSITION. Although my arm was energy balanced slightly favoring the backside, it could have been so frontloaded with mass and they wouldn't have even noticed. The dude just said, "i could tell just by looking that your arm was balanced", which doesn't make sense at all. I wonder if the other FATs and got the energy rule checked properly... Also, that wind was so variable throughout the day - at times it would favor teams at variable magnitudes, and it would also change directions, screwing up calibrations and predictions everywhere. I asked the event coordinator why in the world they would hold it outside with such gusts, and he said some team told them that they would fire 30m, but I'm pretty sure that didn't happen. I suggested that they just lower the CW to make everyone fire shorter distances so that they could hold the event inside, but they said that would be impossible.

Also, apparently gravity vehicle had a bunch of rules broken/teams that got tier 2'd who shouldn't have. Maglev vehicles got time to accelerate before the photogate, favoring teams with longer tracks, which isn't supposed to happen.

With boomilever, I also tested on the far right station - I meticulously made mine so it was balanced and everything was touching the wall at the starting position, but apparently my compression member was about half a centimeter away from the wall at that station, meaning that when weight was applied at the distal end, the compression members angled upwards, potentially causing it to break much earlier than expected. Thankfully, I caught it before hand and loosened the bolt, increasing the stress on the base and tensions members to make a right angle compression. Idk, that could have just been a design flaw or something wrong with my testing station I have at home, but since others are bringing it up too..

Lastly, that small 16ft room for elastic launched glider was a real problem for a lot of teams; hugely different from what they had at regionals and invitationals which were typically held in gyms.

....really janky building event friday, but I guess with a brand new venue, some wrinkles just need to be ironed as the years go on.

[sofan]

I didnt hear about picture this using words out of an english dictionary. But, the words were insane. Nobody on our team knew the words. If there is anyone from woodcreek that would like to share the amount of words the got correctly,I would apprectate it. Others can also share their stressful experience at state doing pic this. Thanks to everyone who shares![/quote]

I could be wrong since I'm Division C and have never done Picture This, but I seem to recall hearing our Division B team for that event saying that they got 7 words, and they ended up getting 4th place. I also heard that a lot of teams were getting something like 3 words.[/quote]
Im guessing your at austin area homeschoolers? Yall did really good for both B and C. seven was very good for those insane words. (Ok, i confess, we were one of the 3 word teams)

[sofan]

Also, the rotor drop was really short. It looked like no more than 6 m. Was thinking about 8-10m.

[GeoChamp96]

I didnt hear about picture this using words out of an english dictionary. But, the words were insane. Nobody on our team knew the words. If there is anyone from woodcreek that would like to share the amount of words the got correctly,I would apprectate it. Others can also share their stressful experience at state doing pic this. Thanks to everyone who shares!

I could be wrong since I'm Division C and have never done Picture This, but I seem to recall hearing our Division B team for that event saying that they got 7 words, and they ended up getting 4th place. I also heard that a lot of teams were getting something like 3 words.[/quote]
Im guessing your at austin area homeschoolers? Yall did really good for both B and C. seven was very good for those insane words. (Ok, i confess, we were one of the 3 word teams)[/quote]

Thanks! Our Division B Team lost pretty much all of its 8th grade members from last year, so they were pretty much trying to do the best we could. We were just happy to get 6th place at State and finally come in first at a Regional competition.

As for our Division C Team, it's only our second year, so we were pretty happy with 11th. I actually did some number-crunching afterward because there were a few fluke events that we completely failed at that we really shouldn't have (e.g. two last places in Boomilever [which suffered from the setup I mentioned earlier] and Anatomy/Physiology [which I think we may have forgotten to write our team name on]), and if those events (plus a few others) had gone the way they were supposed to, we would have ended somewhere around 6th behind Langham Creek. Plus, the fact that we were able to contend with two veteran teams at Regionals gives us a lot of hope for the future. Next year will be the first year we have actual tryouts instead of taking whoever we can find, so we're hoping to do as well as our Division B Team has done in the past.

I wish they were able to get the event rules out sooner... I'd love to start working on my events over the summer. Problem is, they're all new or likely to change next year...

[sofan]

http://www.soinc.org/sites/default/file ... -14-13.doc
it lists the possible events.
then go to soinc.org and find the event.