Junkyard Challenge B

[rjm]

This event will be very much like MA, with the exception that the materials you build with are specified in the body of the rules and not subject to the notions of some recently-recruited event supervisor. That will help. I coached MA from 2000 through 2006 and generally found that this was a difficult event to run well at tournaments.

MA and this version of JYC emphasizes creativity and insight rather than methodical engineering development. There will be no well-made devices, that's not the objective. The thought is that this will require problem solving under pressure.

When I coached MA, I wrote a large number of practice problems for my kids to use for building skills and for finding workable starting points for problems. When I handed the job off to another coach on our team, he had plenty of practices ready to use. One of the weaknesses of the event was that whoever was writing the problem for a given tournament might think of a structural or functional device in some completely off-the-wall manner, provide inappropriate materials, or an unrealistic scoring scheme, and the real contest became one of coping with these unknowns. So, there were times when the outcome measured the scientific or engineering problem solving skills of students and other times when a flash of insight and a lucky combination of circumstances led to success. What you can do to prepare is to pool your imaginations and experiences and develop good practices.

If the event is eventually run as a core set of rules and a library of off-the-shelf problems from which an ES may choose and lightly modify, then perhaps there is room for constructive input from this group in proposing interesting but buildable problems. Think about it.

Bob Monetza
Grand Haven, MI

[biology+astronomy]

When do they post the new task? I've been absolutely DYING to know so we can start working on it... and so we can ask questions in time this year. If anyone finds out, lemme know. Thankss(:

[ichaelm]

Usually they come out with the official rules around September 15th, I think? That's not a definite date, that's an estimate. But if it helps at all with your ideas, read the post right above yours if you haven't already!

[GoNerdHerd]

Does anyone have predictions/guesses towards the topic of 2011?

[brobo]

No one will no anything until the rules come out. However, a few little hints have been dropped, and it sounds like the topic will be less about building a functioning device and more about creatively building a device on site under pressure.

I think it sounds cool, I can't wait!

[AlphaTauri]

So, if this happens, JYC will basically become a new version of Mystery Architecture (only more Rube-Goldberg-ish)? I've done stuff like this at school, and trust me, it's not easy to build anything that works in an hour. I shudder to think of all the logistical challenges involved in running such an event, especially at larger competitions with 40-60 teams. Still sounds cool, though!

[brobo]

Actually, the way I read it, its going to be more like the 2009 JYC, where you have a mystery item that you have to incorporate into your device... Idk. We'll just have to wait until September.

[masterhat]

I think that sounds kind of silly. I've heard that it allows students to use random items like paper plates and straws (but supposedly not the straw wrapper?). I think the concept is good, but the event is kind of going down the tubes. I believe that with this event as proposed, it will make it so that people have bad building technique. I also feel that teams will be more likely to cheat because they all have the same time and building materials to start out with.

I have heard a different set of rules that i believe is a better alternative. It is where 10 challenges are announced for the year (could be like tipping the scale, coin sorter, and mousetrap triggering). Then, a month ahead of a competition, it is cut down to 2 for regionals, 3 for state, and 4 for nationals. All of the parts could be predesigned like this year (but with stricter limits on things like microcontrollers) and put into a box. I think this would make teams realize that they need to use the same parts for different tasks and would be challenging and fun. It would also create a bigger spread between the best and worst teams.

[haven chuck]

Actually, the way I read it, its going to be more like the 2009 JYC, where you have a mystery item that you have to incorporate into your device... Idk. We'll just have to wait until September.

I think the whole mystery material idea is gone for good. Rather, I think it's a mystery objective. You bring a box of unaltered supplies, and have practiced before hand with a basic idea of the task (i.e. build a tower/bridge/cantilever). Then, at the competition they pick the specific objective, like "build the lightest tower to hold x mass" or "build the tower with a square base of 20 cm per edge and a max height of 20 cm with the greatest efficiency". This would reward teams who had practiced and knew how to use their materials, and would eliminate the "perfect score" idea from last year. This is just how I interpreted the brief summary of next year that jander14indoor posted a while back (quoted below). I could be way off, so take what I said with a grain of salt.

Note, the event was never 'intended' to be a precision timed, it was 'intended' to be build on site. Unfortunately the rules didn't implement that intent. If it had been foreseen to need this level of precision to distinquish results, the rules would have been changed. While it is possible to time to thousands of a second as discussed on this forum, the results would still have reflected random chance, NOT student expertise. As already mentioned, students reaction in dropping the ball to a prompt had error larger than a tenth of a second which covered multiple otherwise perfect teams!

Oh, and how did you time with a video to ten thousandths of a second? Normal frame rate is 30 frames per second, that's only good to 3 hundredths. Did you have a highspeed video? 10000 frames per second? You can get that kind of precision with audio, but not normal video.

OK, lesson learned, new rules for next year will hopefully get this event where it was intended, a build on site event which challenges students to prepare engineered solutions in advance, bring a plan of attack to the contest, but to react to 'surprises' the day of the event.

For next year:
The Junkyard contents will be specified for the students. Students provide the materials up to what will fit in a standard box along with all tools for impound. The items will be common, low cost materials, plates, straws, toothpicks, etc. Students provide junkyard contents to fill the box. No pre-assembly.
The tasks will be generically pre-specified with some degree of variation you only learn on site, but nothing like the unknown material of several years back.
The tasks break down into two broad categories. Structures and materiel movers. Students will learn which general task they must execute and its specific parameters at the tournament.
Scoring will be open ended efficiency type measures. No such thing as a perfect score like last year. No need for levels of precision which guanrantee random selection of the winner.

I'm not going to get more specific as the rules are still in draft and may change, but not hugely from that overview.

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

[AlphaTauri]

Actually, the way I read it, its going to be more like the 2009 JYC, where you have a mystery item that you have to incorporate into your device... Idk. We'll just have to wait until September.

I think the whole mystery material idea is gone for good. Rather, I think it's a mystery objective. You bring a box of unaltered supplies, and have practiced before hand with a basic idea of the task (i.e. build a tower/bridge/cantilever). Then, at the competition they pick the specific objective, like "build the lightest tower to hold x mass" or "build the tower with a square base of 20 cm per edge and a max height of 20 cm with the greatest efficiency". This would reward teams who had practiced and knew how to use their materials, and would eliminate the "perfect score" idea from last year. This is just how I interpreted the brief summary of next year that jander14indoor posted a while back (quoted below). I could be way off, so take what I said with a grain of salt.

For next year:
The Junkyard contents will be specified for the students. Students provide the materials up to what will fit in a standard box along with all tools for impound. The items will be common, low cost materials, plates, straws, toothpicks, etc. Students provide junkyard contents to fill the box. No pre-assembly.
The tasks will be generically pre-specified with some degree of variation you only learn on site, but nothing like the unknown material of several years back.
The tasks break down into two broad categories. Structures and materiel movers. Students will learn which general task they must execute and its specific parameters at the tournament.
Scoring will be open ended efficiency type measures. No such thing as a perfect score like last year. No need for levels of precision which guanrantee random selection of the winner.

I'm not going to get more specific as the rules are still in draft and may change, but not hugely from that overview.

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

I think the mystery objective version would probably be the "best" way to run JYC (although the "structure" category is basically an organized version of the mad dash to build a bridge/tower/etc. while at the competition because you didn't build one beforehand). Personally, I didn't like this year's rules, because of the whole issue with several perfect scores and because, to me, it sorta killed the idea of the event (Rube-Goldberg-esque devices) and made it a lot more like Mission Possible instead.