New Jersey 2017

[maxxxxx]

This situation is becoming very reminiscent of Ohio last year, in the sense that everyone is commenting their opinion while we still don't know all of the details. I would gladly invite everyone to hold off on arguing about this until we hear from the actual arbitrator(as was the case last year) or directly from NJSO, with their decision and ALL of the details that led to it. There's a reason why tournaments have actual arbitration committees, and the decision and facts should come from them.

[BuildingFriend]

This situation is becoming very reminiscent of Ohio last year, in the sense that everyone is commenting their opinion while we still don't know all of the details. I would gladly invite everyone to hold off on arguing about this until we hear from the actual arbitrator(as was the case last year) or directly from NJSO, with their decision and ALL of the details that led to it. There's a reason why tournaments have actual arbitration committees, and the decision and facts should come from them.

I agree- only thing to really do is improve next year as Helicopter is still an event (probably)

[windu34]

It's only March and we already have a controversy on our hands? (though at least this is nowhere near as big as Ohio last year)

Gotta love controversy.

I'd give my POV, but it's the same as many others above and i don't have any new points to bring to the discussion.
I agree it was the right call to remove helicopters from overall scores while still awarding medals.

[noobforce]

I was a competitor in Helicopters this past Tuesday. Here are my thoughts.

What was happening with these "stuck" helicopters was that while they were "hooked" into the rafters, they were still spinning.


Regardless of their top rotor was freespinning or stationary, the top rotor did not rotate independently of the motorstick or the helicopter because it was stuck to the rafter. However, the bottom rotors of all the teams whose helicopter was "stuck" were still spinning. So the helicopter was still moving in place. The helicopter would only fall when the bottom rotor stopped spinning, demonstrating that the bottom rotor was still contributing to lift.

Now to the original question, do you stop timing when this helicopter becomes "stuck"?

The official rules state timing must stop when the rotors no longer support the weight of the helicopter. With nothing else explicitly stated in the rules, I believe there are two main interpretations of this rule (of course, not official). One could argue that the rotors must fully support the weight of the helicopter, while another person could argue the rotors only need to provide a fraction of the lift needed to support the weight (the rest of the force could be provided by an external force). The rules do not state the rotors must be providing the only force keeping the helicopter in the air. In this specific incident, using the latter interpretation, these "stuck" helicopters should still continue to be timed because the bottom rotor was still contributing to lift, but the rafter provided the support needed to keep the helicopter afloat.

Obviously, the first rule interpretation aligns with the spirit of the event, and the final interpretation comes down the event supervisor. The event supervisor seemed to follow the second rule interpretation (he explicitly told me that because the bottom rotors were still spinning, they still contributed to lift forces), which is technically correct, so I will support that ruling. As such, I do believe the helicopters results should be included in team scoring.

[lumosityfan]

While those are very great points, I think the main problem is, at least in my opinion, is that while the bottom rotors might still be providing lift, they don't actually provide enough force to keep it afloat if you will. The main idea of that rule would be that teams could not take advantage of rafters and just get their helicopters stuck there.

[scioly_veteran]

Honestly, the only way that this competition would have been fair was to just cancel the event for the team point calculations. The rules specifically state that each team may only receive 2 official flights regardless of whether or not the helicopter got stuck or not. However, the ES allowed them to have as many flights, until 2 flights came down, allowing each team to retrieve the helicopter to test multiple times. This was not the only violation of the rules that occurred with this event. The ES allowed the time to keep timing until the helicopter (by luck) came down. The rules specifically state that the timer must be stopped when the helicopter could not support itself. At Regionals, there were many helicopters that did the same thing (1 rotor stuck), but the event supervisors stopped the time because it has always been this way. With the incorrect times, teams were able to achieve insane times of up to 4 minutes 30 seconds. This is just not right because teams at the national level strive to achieve times just over 2.5 minutes. I also have done this event in the past in the B division, and the timers were stopped when the one rotor got stuck. I personally think that the New Jersey's Science Olympiad Director made the right decision to cancel the event, (while commending some lucky competitors at the same time). It is just not fair to count it for the team score because it would not be a competition of who is better, but a competition "testing" luck.

[anom1]

Hello

I am not associated with any schools or groups. This is only my personal opinion.

As mentioned before, helicopters was an event previously and it was conducted in the same gym where it was conducted this year. During that time, the event counted towards team position. Since there have been no major changes in the rules, why should it not count this time around? Also, during previous invitationals this year, many helicopters got stuck in the rafter on the ceiling but yet the event still counted. Everyone has the same chance of their helicopter getting caught. Third, if the event supervisors have made a mistake, they were consistent with everyone. No one team got an advantage due to the ways they counted the time and score. If teams had previously known about this, there was no major change they could have made to their helicopter to benefit them. This example was also seen in a previous invitational for robot arm. Most supervisors said that overlapping pennies count as only 1 penny but the supervisor their said that they do not count as any. Now this effected the scores of almost all of the teams. This meant that EVERY SINGLE TEAM was scored the same way and so no team came out with an advantage. This event still counted towards the final placement of teams. This should also be the case for helicopters.

Again, I am not part of any teams and this is only my sole opinion.

[maxxxxx]

This example was also seen in a previous invitational for robot arm. Most supervisors said that overlapping pennies count as only 1 penny but the supervisor their said that they do not count as any. Now this effected the scores of almost all of the teams. This meant that EVERY SINGLE TEAM was scored the same way and so no team came out with an advantage. This event still counted towards the final placement of teams. This should also be the case for helicopters.

Again, I am not part of any teams and this is only my sole opinion.

This is a poor example because rule 7.a. clearly states that overlapping pennies receive 0 points, while rule 4.j. for Helicopters isn't as specific. Furthermore, that method of Robot Arm scoring would not treat everyone the same, because teams who built their robot to the rules would have the same score, while teams who relied on overlapping pennies would have a lower score. In that case it absolutely should've counted towards the final team scores because it followed the rules. The reason why Helicopters is so up-in-the-air is because the rules seem to leave this scenario up to interpretation, and because we do not know every detail about how the event was run, we should wait until the arbitration committee reaches a decision, and then trust that decision because it is most likely going to be a hard one to make.

[BuildingFriend]

Couldn't they just send both teams One more team won't hurt haha

[EDIT] Ok it might be a little dangerous

[Unome]

Couldn't they just send both teams One more team won't hurt haha

It most certainly would, considering the amount of logistical effort, as well as the dangers this opens up. This has been expanded upon multiple times by others in the forums.