As usual, this isn't the place for official statements or clarifications. In response to your items (unofficially of course):keslerscience wrote:I ran my first hovercraft event at an invitational recently and a few questions came up.
1. There was one hovercraft that had about 16 9.0v batteries in a parallel circuits. The voltage never exceeded 9.0 across either of the circuits so it appeared to be in line with rule 4H. Is that right?
2. Some teams completed 1 successful run and on their second run wanted to stop their craft before the finish if they didn't think it was going to beat their first run causing a failed attempt. This doesn't seem allowed per Part 5 m. Correct?
3. Can the competitors run their device on the floor or behind the starting gate to test it during their 8 mins?
4. Per part 5 q it states that a failed attempt is triple the target time. Even if we saw that the device was crawling along the track and wouldn't make it in 51 seconds (target time 17) we were making them wait until 51 to turn it off. Any proctor discretion here? I didn't want it all of a sudden to pick up steam and cross the line before 51 seconds. The problem is that the juice on their batteries really get eaten up during this time.
5. The last, and maybe most important one, has to do with scoring. I used the spreadsheet on scioly (thanks by the way). I do see a problem with TS (time score) is calculated though. A run of 5.0 would score no time at all if the target time was 17. However, I run of 39 seconds would actually get a decent amount of points. I think it was nearly 13 points which is huge in a close competition. Clearly 5.0 is closer to the target time than 39. Is this by design?
thanks
Chris
1. Yes, having lots of 9V batteries in parallel is fine
2. Correct, teams can't stop a run in progress. However we don't really have an explicit penalty in the rules for if they do. It'd be up to the individual event supervisor, but if I was running such an event I'd prevent the team from trying to do another run as the penalty.
3. Testing it not on the track during the adjustment period is something I'd personally allow, assuming there is sufficient space available. Again, it'll be up to the individual supervisor.
4. There is ALWAYS event supervisor discretion in situations like this, as long as it's applied uniformly to all teams.
5. Yes, the scoring formula by design penalizes devices that err on the side of being faster (this was a safety decision on our part). Instead of thinking about it in terms of absolute time, I prefer to think about it in terms of % speed. A run of 5s is 3.4x the ideal speed, while a run of 39s is 0.4x the ideal speed (e.g. a 2.5x ratio, compared to the 3.4x ratio of the 5s run). Note it would have been very complicated to craft a scoring formula that worked based upon absolute time error.