Trajectory B/C

[sean9keenan]

i bet a lot of people would overshoot that or have it come in too low

Many did: I know for sure that Uniontown and Harriton (1st and 2nd place respectively) hit both targets. Does anyone know if Plymouth Whitemarsh or Wallenpaupak also hit both targets?

I believe they did, hitting both targets really did place you in the top 4. I was in line next to the Wallenpaupak kids, they were very nice, hello Wallenpaupak kids!!

[anon y mouse]

It seems that the event supervisor for nats is from NY this year, given his email: [email protected]

Anyone know who it is/what targets they put at states?

[cypressfalls Robert]

maybe you should ask in this thread: http://scioly.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php? ... &start=660

[fmtiger124]

It seems that the event supervisor for nats is from NY this year, given his email: [email protected]

Anyone know who it is/what targets they put at states?

i was there but i don't remeber the targets sorry

[cypressfalls Robert]

did anyone hit two bullsye for trajectory C....we got 13th with all targets hit
high-20cm
high-15cm
far-20cm
far-10cm

[Synnnn]

Yeah we were about 2 cm off of the close target and about 3-4 cm off the far target and got third at nationals.

[binary010101]

I heard that the people in Pennsylvania did that. You'd have to get on of them to confirm.

I'm pretty sure it was at least 1 meter at regionals. Our team undershot the height.

[fullofit]

The same guy ran trajectory this year as has run trajectory and storm the castle for years. I had two issues with how the event was run this year. 1. THere was essentially no way to aim at the far target because they blocked off the view with a curtain. I think the curtain was actually meant to stop people from shooting unter the elevated target (which I think was a good idea) but it also made aiming highly problematic. 2. The air conditioning was cycling on and off and creating wind that was especially strong at the elevations that were needed to hit the far target. Since the AC was cycling (and air currents from multiple A/C outlets in notoriously unpredictable and varies over time) there was no reliable way to compensate for the wind.

The curtain could have been made of some sort of clear material (shower curtain, acrylic, etc.), which would have not allowed shooting under the target but would have at least allowed aiming at the far target.

As to the A/C that is a somewhat more difficult problem. We all know haw humid it was in Augusta, and that gym could have been unbearable without A/C but perhaps they could have arrainged to turn it off when the teams were actually shooting.

A slightly less troublesome issue for us at least was the height of the ceiling. For the long shot we came extremely close to hitting the ceiling, although we did clear it, but I saw at least one team hit the ceiling. This was a serious issue back in 07 with Storm the Castle so I figured the event coordinator would have given it a bit more thought this time. All he would have had to do is shorten the range to the far target a bit and he could have avoided any chance of the ceiling being an issue.

I know that all the teams had the smae issues to deal with but I still feel that everything possible should be done to insure that the "experiment" has as few uncontrolled variables as possible. What you accomplish with the inability of the teams to aim at the far target and the A/C blowing the ball off course is to essentially introduce a large measure of pure luck into the experiment, which I would assume is not what we want in a science competition. I know that the same kid who won last year also won this year (he moved from B to C this year), so you can argue that whatever the problems, the best team still won but even he complained that the wind was causing major errors.

One final issue that I am a bit less certain that I would call a complaint. The event coordinator for this event is a very enthusiastic guy, and that's great, but he made so much noise (in combination with the croud he was trying to fire up, that wthe partners on the teams sometimes could not even hear each other. We were trying to communicate numbers and directions back and forth but we couldn't hear each other. It might be nice if the event coordinator could get the croud riled up before the actual launching takes place, and then asks everyone to quite down.

[cypressfalls Robert]

The same guy ran trajectory this year as has run trajectory and storm the castle for years. I had two issues with how the event was run this year. 1. THere was essentially no way to aim at the far target because they blocked off the view with a curtain. I think the curtain was actually meant to stop people from shooting unter the elevated target (which I think was a good idea) but it also made aiming highly problematic. 2. The air conditioning was cycling on and off and creating wind that was especially strong at the elevations that were needed to hit the far target. Since the AC was cycling (and air currents from multiple A/C outlets in notoriously unpredictable and varies over time) there was no reliable way to compensate for the wind.

you should have just line your machine up according to the perpindicular line to the targets on the box taped to the floor

One final issue that I am a bit less certain that I would call a complaint. The event coordinator for this event is a very enthusiastic guy, and that's great, but he made so much noise (in combination with the croud he was trying to fire up, that wthe partners on the teams sometimes could not even hear each other. We were trying to communicate numbers and directions back and forth but we couldn't hear each other. It might be nice if the event coordinator could get the croud riled up before the actual launching takes place, and then asks everyone to quite down.

That was a problem for us too, we were trying to talk and the coordinater was rallying the crowd

[kp9ssa]

wat distance were the targets at at nats