Moving a mass for ten seconds

cypressfalls Robert
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Moving a mass for ten seconds

Post by cypressfalls Robert »

this is a disscusion for the task to move a mass for ten seconds or forty seconds for a bonus.

- motor turns and pulls string with nail that sets off a mousetrap

One thing I learned from competetion is that the string does not count as a mass, something has to be attatched to it for it to count.
Other ideas on this...
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Re: Moving a mass for ten seconds

Post by Protestant »

A string should have counted. What did they say as the reason it didn't count?

If it doesn't count, I think the boundary between counting and not counting as mass should be made clearer.
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Re: Moving a mass for ten seconds

Post by cypressfalls Robert »

They suggested a nail or something attatched to the string to be counted as a mass :evil:

would a motorized car count as the mass moving?
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Re: Moving a mass for ten seconds

Post by penclspinner »

cypressfalls_Robert wrote:They suggested a nail or something attatched to the string to be counted as a mass :evil:

would a motorized car count as the mass moving?
I think that the event supervisor is seeing the string as the medium that is transferring the energy of the motor to the mass. In that case, the string is not the mass.

I would not use a motorized car as the moving mass. I'm assuming that the car's engine is the motor which moves the "mass" which is the car. I can't put my finger on the reason why I don't think that you would get points for this. The closest reason that I can think of is because it would constitute as a black box, but I don't think that the car is a black box.
So I don't think that the car could be used as a moving mass but I can't properly explain to you why ...=).

I'm sure that DS or another authoritative figure will correct me and provide you with the correct answer.
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Re: Moving a mass for ten seconds

Post by Paradox21 »

Hmm, I think with the motorized car the argument could be made that the motor that turns the shaft is also moving, where the rules say that a motor turns a shaft that moves a mass. I don't think that there is anything in the line that says the shaft that moves the mass can't move with it. So I think you could certainly say that would fall into the category of the task at hand. However, I am a competitor who is used to trying to stretch the rules as far as possible. Others might disagree.

As for black boxes, there actually is no rule forbidding them this year. If you have even heard of them it is probably from the Mission Possible Wiki or the ancient Mission Possible thread. You can put as many black boxes in as you want. Good luck finding many though, the rules this year are much more specific which makes black boxes a lot harder to find.
When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened.
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Re: Moving a mass for ten seconds

Post by penclspinner »

Paradox21 wrote:Hmm, I think with the motorized car the argument could be made that the motor that turns the shaft is also moving, where the rules say that a motor turns a shaft that moves a mass. I don't think that there is anything in the line that says the shaft that moves the mass can't move with it. So I think you could certainly say that would fall into the category of the task at hand. However, I am a competitor who is used to trying to stretch the rules as far as possible. Others might disagree.

As for black boxes, there actually is no rule forbidding them this year. If you have even heard of them it is probably from the Mission Possible Wiki or the ancient Mission Possible thread. You can put as many black boxes in as you want. Good luck finding many though, the rules this year are much more specific which makes black boxes a lot harder to find.
Yes I used the same logic to approach this problem. I guess I stand corrected.

The more I think about it, the more it seems to make sense that it would be allowed yet it still bothers me for some reason (maybe I'm just jealous because I didn't think of this great idea on my own).
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Re: Moving a mass for ten seconds

Post by Dark Sabre »

Okay, so I think this question is moot for a couple reasons:
  • I've never seen an RC car that you could run 10 seconds and not go out of a 80cm long box. You could definitely undervolt it and it might crawl less than 80cm in 10s, but that's tempting fate (of it just stopping). But I've no idea how you could run an RC car on its own wheels for the maximum of 40 seconds within an MPC enclosure...too small to turn in circles...too short to go straight.
  • A more appealing setup would be just to tie a string with a weight or something on the end to the wheel/axle.
  • If this is an RC car, it has numerous kinds of electronics that are not allowed (ICs, transistors, etc). So you can't use it (intact) anyway.
If it isn't an RC car you are contemplating...what specifically is it?

To my knowledge, there has never been a written rule about black boxes. Yes, you can put in as many black boxes as you want...you just shouldn't claim points for transfers that are "inside" the black box. Just about everything is a black box to some extent.

So if you were writing an old-school ETL (now a TSL...Task Sequence List) for the RC car transfer, here's how it would look:

[starting energy form] - [action] - [ending energy form]

Code: Select all

Mechanical - Weight presses remote control button, sending signal - EMS
EMS - Car receives signal and goes forward - Mechanical
Because you didn't really do anything yourself with the motor inside the car, you don't get to take credit for it. I mean, if you got to claim everything that was going on it would be like:

Code: Select all

Mechanical - Weight presses remote control button, impacting circuit board sensor - Electrical
Electrical - Onboard IC decides what to do - Electrical
Electrical - IC codes signal to the transmitter - EMS
EMS - transmitter sends signal to car's IC - Electrical
Electrical - IC decides what to do - Electrical
Electrical - IC powers transistor - Electrical
Electrical - transistor powers motor - Electrical
Electrical - Motor converts electricity into rotary motion - Mechanical
Mechanical - Rotary motion is conveyed down shaft to wheels - Mechanical
Mechanical - Wheels grip surface, pushing car forward - Mechanical
You could break that up infinitesimally, writing it as a thousand steps...none of which did you exert any effort for. That's why you just claim the input and output transfers to "black boxes".

So let's say that you unscrew the RC car, throw away the controller, hotwire the motor so that it goes forward when you hit a switch (bypassing all the control electronics...should remove them too), and hot glue a string+weight to the axle. Now there are no illegal electronics and your transfer would look like this:

Code: Select all

Mechanical - Switch is depressed, completing circuit - Electrical
Electrical - Motor spins axle, reeling in string - Mechanical
Mechanical - Weight on string does something - Mechanical
Since you don't write ETLs that cover every step of the machine like you used to, you don't get points for energy conversions, etc...black boxes are a lot less important (and harder to figure out), but they still exist.
cypressfalls Robert
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Re: Moving a mass for ten seconds

Post by cypressfalls Robert »

Dark Sabre wrote:Okay, so I think this question is moot for a couple reasons:
  • I've never seen an RC car that you could run 10 seconds and not go out of a 80cm long box. You could definitely undervolt it and it might crawl less than 80cm in 10s, but that's tempting fate (of it just stopping). But I've no idea how you could run an RC car on its own wheels for the maximum of 40 seconds within an MPC enclosure...too small to turn in circles...too short to go straight.
  • A more appealing setup would be just to tie a string with a weight or something on the end to the wheel/axle.
  • If this is an RC car, it has numerous kinds of electronics that are not allowed (ICs, transistors, etc). So you can't use it (intact) anyway.
If it isn't an RC car you are contemplating...what specifically is it?
Its not an RC car, we will be building our own car: probably wired not radio controlled. It will just have a motor and maybe gears, and wheels. The entire car itself would expose the motor and gears so I don't think it would be a black box.
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Re: Moving a mass for ten seconds

Post by Dark Sabre »

Well, if you are building it yourself, it would definitely not be a black box.

I'll admit I'm confused how building something that moves around could be more reliable or easier than just having a motor+wormgear+axle that lowers a weight onto a switch.
That's what I used :P
Well, I was actually lowering a piece of copper into a vinegar battery, but the mechanism is the same. That's how I did my timing...I'd do a full run during setup time, timing myself. I'd just run the motor in the right direction to correct for the amount of time I was over/under 60s.
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Re: Moving a mass for ten seconds

Post by bearasauras »

I don't think you can take credit for something you didn't build...
Paradox21 wrote:*snip* As for black boxes, there actually is no rule forbidding them this year. If you have even heard of them it is probably from the Mission Possible Wiki or the ancient Mission Possible thread...*snip*
ancient? *twitch*
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