Next Year's Junkyard Challenge

fleet130
Staff Emeritus
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 433
Joined: November 10th, 2001, 3:06 pm
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0
Contact:

Re: Next Year's Junkyard Challenge

Post by fleet130 »

I feel that the people who feel there are too many building events are educators and not engineers.
Possibly true, but irrelevant. They still have significant influence on the decision-making process.
They just don't listen to the masses
Some of "them" report that less than 50% of the teams at their tournaments enter building events. Whatever your bent toward these events, they have a point.
Information expressed here is solely the opinion of the author. Any similarity to that of the management or any official instrument is purely coincidental! Doing Science Olympiad since 1987!
DeltaHat
Member
Member
Posts: 71
Joined: June 1st, 2001, 4:36 pm
Division: Grad
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0
Contact:

Re: Next Year's Junkyard Challenge

Post by DeltaHat »

The difficulty with engineering events is scale. Each event must be easy enough at the regional level to avoid scaring off young, small, and under-supported teams, while being difficult enough at the national level to challenge the most competitive teams in the nation. I speak from experience when I say this is an extremely difficult thing to do. Add to this the challenge of making events approachable and unintimidating.

In retrospect, I realize that JYC is a very abstract event. As a software engineer, my daily life revolves around handling abstraction, but this event has helped me realize that not everybody is comfortable with high degrees of abstraction and indirection. Building a bottle rocket is both straight forward and concrete. Combining two sets of rules on the fly to build a device that supports an unknown runtime parameter is both complex and very abstract. The people that get it really enjoy the event. The people who don't fear it and reject it. Sadly, the second group is significantly more vocal than the first.
National Event Supervisor - Mission Possible
fleet130
Staff Emeritus
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 433
Joined: November 10th, 2001, 3:06 pm
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0
Contact:

Re: Next Year's Junkyard Challenge

Post by fleet130 »

Mission may have suffered from much the same problem, although it was also the complexity of scoring that turned off "straight-line" thinkers..
Information expressed here is solely the opinion of the author. Any similarity to that of the management or any official instrument is purely coincidental! Doing Science Olympiad since 1987!
nejanimb
Exalted Member
Exalted Member
Posts: 343
Joined: November 14th, 2008, 5:17 am
Division: Grad
State: PA
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Next Year's Junkyard Challenge

Post by nejanimb »

The hole that JYC/Mission fills is a difficult one.

The Balsa events (bridge, tower, boom) work very well, as they're fairly easy to grasp and build something for, but can be really complex on the most competitive levels (though I'm always shocked as to the number of teams that bring tier 2 devices). The best part is that there is no such thing as a maximum score.

The Car events work pretty well (Scrambler, EV, Wheeled Vehicle, etc.) because it's relatively easy, again, to make something. Unfortunately, these events always seem to have bunching at the top. This is where there is a disadvantage as compared to the Balsa events, since whenever an event has the goal of a perfect score (ex: a 200 in EV), there are many teams throughout the country that will work until they get there (or at least extremely close). The method of increasing the difficulty of the task (since the nationals EV task is so much harder) does help somewhat though.

The launching events (Treb, Traj) do scale well too, I think. I prefer Treb to Traj though because, again, it's impossible to get a "perfect score," allowing for limitless improvement. Still cool.

The flight events (Bottle Rockets, Planes, Ornithopter, Egg-o-Naut) are the same way. Good, scalable, and there's no perfect score.

I like the *kind of* building events, like Time and Sounds. I prefer sounds, just because the devices end up being so awesome (some of the past instruments still get used by their performers, but there's no way our clock will get any use after competition). Sounds is such a cool event, and such great devices come out of it. Perhaps a little subjective, but oh well.

The JYC/Mission spot though, is tough. Mission suffered from being both too difficult for less competitive teams and the perfect score problem - bunching at both the top and the bottom. Unfortunate, because it's such a cool event, but it needs work in order to eliminate both of those problems. JYC improves on both of those issues, but it's still so complex that it has a fairly high barrier to entry. I don't think it's essentially flawed though - maybe a streamlined scoring system? Not sure. But, there's my opinion on how the building events fall.
Last edited by nejanimb on April 22nd, 2009, 8:39 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Harriton '10, UVA '14
Event Supervisor in MA (prev. VA and NorCal)
rjm
Member
Member
Posts: 76
Joined: March 31st, 2002, 4:07 pm
State: MI
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Next Year's Junkyard Challenge

Post by rjm »

Nejanimb, I like the way you think. Keep it up.

The building events have particular appeal for the kids who need tangible feedback as part of their learning - those who learn with their hands, touching, manipulating, and modifying things, observing cause and effect, and getting the satisfaction of making something do what they intended for it to do. Building events are a great hook for higher learning, and a great confirmation of theoretical thinking. We just have to make sure that the building events stay challenging but appropriate, and never let them become mediocre or trivial.

I don't have a great deal of experience with JYC, I'm coaching it for the first time this year. My kids have enjoyed it, the problem-solving opportunities are hard to match in any other events. Further, we can have a number of kids working on different ideas simultaneously. I think that this year's problems have been buildable on multiple levels, from all-thumbs to sophisticated competitor. I like events with open-ended, non-discrete scoring, so measured quantities (efficiency of bridge, accuracy of JYC scale, flight times, etc) make good scoring schemes. Counting points works if you give teams so many scoring opportunities and so little time (or other resources) that no one can actually complete the task; without that you use tie-breakers like (measured) time or mass.

The difficulty I've encountered with JYC has been with judges who approach the event with pre-conceived notions of what the kids should have built. JYC claims to be a spiritual successor to Mystery Architecture. MA was also notorious for being run badly. I don't think it's the kids who have trouble dealing with the abstractions of these events, it's the people who run the events with a rigid, and unyielding, focus. That's probably in the nature of a competition: well defined rules are readily defended and tend to yield clear winners.

My only strong objection here is with the mystery material. In MA, devices were built on the fly out of whatever junk was made available, but the performance expectation was minimal (hold something above the table for 30 seconds...). In JYC the kids are expected to produce high-performance, precision devices, and then expected to incorporate something from a wide-open field of possibilities without compromising the performance. When you give the judges the opportunity to determine whether a use is "significant", then you open the door to misinterpretation, uneven application of the rules, and a bad rap for the event. I've seen it done. My suggestion would be to eliminate the mystery material, or make it a minor bonus rather than a "tier 3" outcome, or publish, in advance, a short list of possible materials which might be used and specific uses that the judges will disallow at a given tournament. That could clear the air.

Bob Monetza
Grand Haven, MI
User avatar
vofbassist
Member
Member
Posts: 74
Joined: September 2nd, 2008, 12:25 pm
Division: Grad
State: WI
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Next Year's Junkyard Challenge

Post by vofbassist »

Some states actually do that in a way. Since it is required to post a list of the required/supplied materials, some of the event supervisors will post their mystery material in that, not stating that it is the mystery material though. Or so I've heared... I think. I can't remember anymore, just like I can't remember if it's required to list the supplied materials. We didn't deal with them in Wisconsin, or atleast in my region, so I'm not sure. Either way, half the fun is figuring that stuff out on the spot rather than planning ahead of time. Or that's my thoughts on it, anyway.
User avatar
sachleen
Exalted Member
Exalted Member
Posts: 225
Joined: April 10th, 2007, 8:31 pm
Division: Grad
State: CA
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 3 times
Contact:

Re: Next Year's Junkyard Challenge

Post by sachleen »

At the state competition, we totally weren't prepared to make a scale, lacking some very important pieces (water). I scrambled through the box to find some way to make a decent scale. I ended up making it using a bunch of tubes/water bottles. (see the images) This got us 11th place (we had no time to test/calibrate it). Tier 3 because it tipped over and I had to touch it to pick it back up... and the estimated mass was about 30g off of the actual mass.

Now that I reflect back on the situation, I think, with the limitations we faced, we did a great job. Sure it was our fault and stuff for not being prepared, but being able to take a box of random junk and making a scale out of it on the spot, when other teams knew exactly what they were doing, we didn't do too bad.

I really like the idea of the event sup providing a box load of materials (same for everyone) and having them do a certain task with them. The task or possible tasks should be explained in the rules so the students can actually try to do something for the event instead of just walking blindly into it. This would require some creativity from the judges however because they would have to choose the materials that would make it possible in multiple ways to complete the certain task.

Some down sides to the idea are that you can't really prepare for something like this. I thought the same thing for JYC this year but figured out universal ways to include just about any mystery material into the device. If the judges provide the materials however, you really wouldn't be able to prepare for it and the quality of the products wouldn't be as great.

I don't know what some of the old events were about, so maybe I'm just missing something, but I'd really like to see an event where you have to really think on the spot and build something with provided materials.


EDIT: vofbassist, I think our region posted a list of possible materials, but I ignored that and tried to create a flaw in the device such that any material could fix it. For the scale at regionals, we could either put the MO along with the weight (if you take out the MO, the scale gives false readings) or, since we had a container to contain any spillage of the water, we could put the material on the bottom of the container to make it un-level. On the opposite side of the container, we used knex sticks taped together to make it level again. This way, no matter what the material was, if it was somewhat heavy, we could easily use it as an extra weight and calibrate the scale that way or if it was light, we could use it to make the device un-level.

At regionals, the MO was a CD, so I just stuck it on the side of the container and put knex sticks on the bottom to make it level again, at state, it was a chalk egg, so we used that as a mass added on to the actual object to offset the calibration if removed.
User avatar
vofbassist
Member
Member
Posts: 74
Joined: September 2nd, 2008, 12:25 pm
Division: Grad
State: WI
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Next Year's Junkyard Challenge

Post by vofbassist »

That's a good idea. We used a spring scale that was placed on top of a tripod. One of our clips to hold the leg up broke, so we would tape our mystery our mystery material under the clip to hold it up. We weren't able to do that at state for the object was a paper clip. Instead, my partner and I replaced the guitar pick we had as a pointer with it. That was acceptable because it would have made our device less accurate without it.
Flavorflav
Member
Member
Posts: 1388
Joined: February 5th, 2006, 7:06 am
Division: Grad
State: NY
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 3 times

Re: Next Year's Junkyard Challenge

Post by Flavorflav »

I would like to echo and endorse what Bob said above, and to add that if JYC is to return, it would be best if there were some significant modifications to the rules. It seems quite likely that between the base rules and the challenge-specific rules, JYC has the most complicated rules of any SciO event, ever. This no doubt has contributed to the large number of judging issues. The concept of the event is intriguing, but I do think the execution has to be simplified, and I do not think that simplification need destroy the spirit of the event. For example, while I understand the motive dividing materials into different categories ("required," "Mystery" etc.), their presence requires the inclusion of a whole section of legalistic definitions; simplifying the materials section would go a long way to simplifying the event. More centrally, while the primary score for the various challenges must needs vary, there is no reason I can think of which would prevent all secondary scoring to be common - i.e., second tier for a touch, ties broken by time then weight etc. Making these and similar changes could allow you to roll the challenge descriptions into the base rules, thus eliminating the need for separate documents. Personally, I did not find the requirement to go get a supplemental set of rules that onerous, but from what I have heard and seen it seems to have created the opportunity for error.
wlsguy
Member
Member
Posts: 366
Joined: March 23rd, 2009, 9:08 am
Division: Grad
State: OH
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Next Year's Junkyard Challenge

Post by wlsguy »

When JYC was run as a trial event (at OSU), it was significantly different. Most noticeably, the 2 possible tasks were announced 1 week before the competition. The final task and some of the details (such as optimum size) were not announced until the day of the competition. This placed the students under an initial time constraint of 1 week with the additional task of on the spot modification. The students learned how to design, build, and test under pressures of time and gave most of the teams an equal playing field regardless of the amount of money they have.

The rules for this year made the event a modified Mission Possible with the most successful teams being the ones with the most access to resources and who had the time to prepare. Our team was among those who spent considerable time working through all of the possibilites to come up with a good design. This is the same approach used for Tractory, Wright Stuff, Bridges, electric vehicle, and the other building events. At the competition these devices either work correctly or they do not. They have little oppertunity for quick thinking and "emergency engineering"

I feel that the "on the spot" engineering and problem solving is one of the lacking areas of Science Olympiad. These skills are invaluable and are difficult to teach except through practice. Many other events (electric vehicle, wright stuff, bridges, etc) already address the skill of creating a good plan and following it for optimum success.

My hope is that JYC moves away from the pre-planned "mission possible" format and moves toward the "on the spot" problem solving format. I'm sure the future NASA astronauts will appreciate these skills if they ever have trouble like Apollo 13.
Post Reply

Return to “2009 Build Events”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests