Mission Possible C

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Re: Mission Possible C

Post by PalladiumTurtle »

XJcwolfyX wrote:Ohhh, at State?
Yeah, I suppose I should have clarified. We won state in Mission with that score of 1117 (ideal time 90), but we didn't make it to nationals as a team. Probably worked out for the best anyways; if I had been preparing for scioly I would not have been preparing for AP tests.
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Re: Mission Possible C

Post by Phys1cs »

Had ours been working correctly, we would be ~950-1000 points. We were missing a couple transfers and at states some things didn't work that worked before. Took 9th overall, and I'm happy with that
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Re: Mission Possible C

Post by Robotica »

blakinator8 wrote:Now that the season is over, what do y'all think about the size bonus?
I think that the size score is a useful way to differentiate between teams at the state and national level, but that it was weighted too heavily for small competitions (regionals & invitationals). When a single pint container that has 2 transfers inside of it can beat a 50 x 50 x 50 device that has 9 transfers, is the central purpose of the event being maintained? I've seen many devices that were quickly made inside of a plastic cup beat out larger ones with the common, open box profile. Sure, it's the team's fault for not reading the rules more carefully, but it seems to me that effort is not being fairly rewarded.
I think that this event would have been better if the size of the box only came into play for a die breaker, the emphasis should be on the transfers and time. The sorter was enough of a bonus, we did not need another.
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Re: Mission Possible C

Post by blakinator8 »

Robotica wrote:
blakinator8 wrote:Now that the season is over, what do y'all think about the size bonus?
I think that the size score is a useful way to differentiate between teams at the state and national level, but that it was weighted too heavily for small competitions (regionals & invitationals). When a single pint container that has 2 transfers inside of it can beat a 50 x 50 x 50 device that has 9 transfers, is the central purpose of the event being maintained? I've seen many devices that were quickly made inside of a plastic cup beat out larger ones with the common, open box profile. Sure, it's the team's fault for not reading the rules more carefully, but it seems to me that effort is not being fairly rewarded.
I think that this event would have been better if the size of the box only came into play for a die breaker, the emphasis should be on the transfers and time. The sorter was enough of a bonus, we did not need another.
Having both the size and sorting bonuses be of significant value increases the variety of devices. With the time, sorting, transfer, and size bonuses being of a similar weight, it gives competitors more paths to gain points. I see this as a positive thing, because it creates many possible solutions - so everyone's device won't be the same, 3-pint arrangement.
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Re: Mission Possible C

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blakinator8 wrote:
Robotica wrote:
blakinator8 wrote:Now that the season is over, what do y'all think about the size bonus?
I think that the size score is a useful way to differentiate between teams at the state and national level, but that it was weighted too heavily for small competitions (regionals & invitationals). When a single pint container that has 2 transfers inside of it can beat a 50 x 50 x 50 device that has 9 transfers, is the central purpose of the event being maintained? I've seen many devices that were quickly made inside of a plastic cup beat out larger ones with the common, open box profile. Sure, it's the team's fault for not reading the rules more carefully, but it seems to me that effort is not being fairly rewarded.
I think that this event would have been better if the size of the box only came into play for a die breaker, the emphasis should be on the transfers and time. The sorter was enough of a bonus, we did not need another.
Having both the size and sorting bonuses be of significant value increases the variety of devices. With the time, sorting, transfer, and size bonuses being of a similar weight, it gives competitors more paths to gain points. I see this as a positive thing, because it creates many possible solutions - so everyone's device won't be the same, 3-pint arrangement.
I definitely agree with this. I found that the balence between tasks and space required for each really affected each Mission box and required me to do more planning than I imagined for just designing the box. In regard to having the sorter being a bonus and having size be a tie breaker, while it makes sense, the amount of teams that would be able to tie with the implementation of a time score would be very few, and if a team misses one second, they would be unable to compete with someone who built a bigger box, which I think should not be rewarded as it would be.
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Re: Mission Possible C

Post by bernard »

Does anyone know any specifics about results for Mission Possible at Nats?
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Re: Mission Possible C

Post by chinesesushi »

How does mission change from year to year?
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Re: Mission Possible C

Post by bernard »

I've only done the event once, but start/final/bonus tasks will most likely change, and scoring for steps might change (points for tasks or energy transfers). If you wanted something to do over the summer, you could work on intermediate steps and connect them to start/final/bonus tasks when the rules are released.
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Re: Mission Possible C

Post by olympiaddict »

Personally, although I really liked the energy transfer concept in theory, it was very unclear and as I'm sure everyone remembers caused a lot of rules problems in practice.
It would still be a very cool premise next year, but if it is kept I really hope something is done to clear things up for next year, with all due respect of course. Otherwise I hope we go back to the machine-elements-and-such-based tasks, which are also a lot of fun and very interesting :)
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Re: Mission Possible C

Post by Trumpsta »

olympiaddict wrote:Personally, although I really liked the energy transfer concept in theory, it was very unclear and as I'm sure everyone remembers caused a lot of rules problems in practice.
It would still be a very cool premise next year, but if it is kept I really hope something is done to clear things up for next year, with all due respect of course. Otherwise I hope we go back to the machine-elements-and-such-based tasks, which are also a lot of fun and very interesting :)
I agree! Transfers result in more creativity, but it is also more difficult to define what is legal. Tasks reduce creative freedom, but it is a little easier to know whether something is allowed or not. That isn't to say there isn't any creativity in tasks––you still need to come up with a way to execute the objective, how to fit them all together, and/or how to use components that you may not otherwise use. However, if they could clean up transfers (say, define it so that a transfer involves two unrelated components and mention input/output energy somehow), it would be a lot easier to follow the rules. Put some test in the rules that everyone can apply to each transfer to determine whether it was legal or not, and such.
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