Egg-O-Naut C

[andrewwski]

Wind is mainly horizontal - you're going to have winds no matter what. Updrafts are less likely to occur. Not sure about where you are, but around here the winds gust - they go from light to heavy in short periods of time.

Since downrange distance is going to be determined mainly by wind, it would really be luck more than anything.

[scienceolympiadist]

true, wind is horizontal, but when the parachute opens high up, even a small wind can let it fly nearly horizontal for quite a while

...until you lose the parachute. lol

[seoliver]

I'm not so sure that the wind is going to dominate like that. With the 1 liter bottles, the outfit isn't aloft for all that long. I would expect that under most weather conditions, aerodynamics of the rocket and recovery system should be as important.

How about running it like trajectory? The target distance is not revealed until the day of competition. You'd need multiple rockets or tunable aerodynamics to score well. Not much chance of a good showing with a rocket that you slapped together the night before.

Anyway, I get the message that this isn't very popular, so I'll drop it. It would be nice to hear some more ideas of changes that could be made that would be less unpopular, but would keep the event from being repetitive. Bonus if it requires some ingenuity and effort to do well, but I'd settle for new, interesting, and entertaining.

Banning parachutes was an interesting idea, but I'm sure we can come up with more.

How about allowing stored energy devices to deploy the recovery system? Timers, rubber bands, springs etc, as long as they don't power flight. The correctly packed parachute was actually in this category already, and nobody said boo.

A requirement that the egg be visible on the pad? The judge bust be able to distinguish a mark on the egg before he pulls the trigger.

Disallow adhesive tape? It would be fun to see the alternatives. Kind of like banning parachutes, though. I'm not sure I like either - it seems too specific.

I'm sure that we can come up with much better ideas.

[scienceolympiadist]

I like the present rules. There are many ways for teams to do well by having creative designs that fit within the rules. While majority of the scores are in the teens (no bonuses), the top scores lay outliers, meaning there are pathways for teams to follow.

There was a trial event called Airjectory, which is like rockets and trajectory. I would rather see the two events seperate though.