Next Year's Junkyard Challenge

[Pleiades]

oh wow i didnt even notice that

[vofbassist]

I agree with dudeincolorado. This is a fun event. However, if they replace it with Mission Possible, I won't complain. That sounds fun as well.

[Phenylethylamine]

Mission Possible sounds fun until you have to lug the thing to competition- part of it always breaks, or goes missing, or simply ceases to work for no apparent reason. It's about the least consistent event I've ever seen.

[gneissisnice]

Well, Harold Miller has stated that JYC is his least favorite event, as it is a huge headache for the organizers, so who knows, it might not show up next year.
I think it could be a good event, but only if everyone agrees on what the rules are.

[gh]

Hey, getting back MP would be fantastic! It was rotated out from B the year I started doing building events in middle school, then rotated back into B the year I went to high school. Now it might be rotated back into C right after I'm done with SO. :P

No, seriously, JYC seems like a huge headache for people competing in it too, since a lot of work can go to waste so easily just because of the nature of the build as a build-on-site thing. From DS's nostalgic blabbering, one can easily suss out that MP must be the king of building events.

[vofbassist]

That's what I'm hoping. Mission Possible is where you have to build a Rube Goldberg like device, right?

[croman74]

That's what I'm hoping. Mission Possible is where you have to build a Rube Goldberg like device, right?

Yeah. We did that for a project in 7th grade. It was really annoying because we didn't have much time to build it. In the end the teacher had to slightly change the grading rubric to bring up some grades.

[vofbassist]

That's wicked. If that happens, my coach already has the two students who'll be doing that for our team.

[croman74]

Rube Goldbergs are sweet if you can get them to work well.

[DeltaHat]

JYC will be a B division event next year. After that, I'm not sure. There is a movement from waaaay up on high to bring Mission back, but its not the mission of our fond memories. They want to bring back a neutered mission. They want it simple, yet hard; easy, yet complicated. I don't hold the event author responsible. He has been given a sisyphean task.

Mission was pulled because it became too complex for its own good. The event required at least a season's worth of work just to do poorly at. The best teams trained for generations. The problem with the event is that it didn't scale well. At the regional level, the event was too much for 90% of the teams who never left their regional tournament. At the national level, there was always a tie for first.

If mission comes back, i fear it will be short lived and a shadow of its former self.