Where is "chalker's post" and what are "TheSquaad's speculations?" I would love it if they change it so instruments playing by itself whether music box type or computer controlled. ...but that it is a REAL instrument to be played. That is: No speakers. Or maybe do it the other way around.... That students will construct a device that plays an instrument provided by the event supervisor with certain specs. Like building a device that plays a real piano supplied by the competition and then measure the play against an algorithm to determine if the timing and dynamics is correct.Oh, actually now that I'm looking at chalker's post again, since it says people shouldn't worry about keeping devices secret, maybe there are changes that are that big. I think it would be plausible that the format of the device testing is changing altogether, like TheSquaad's speculations, but it would be hard to predict how.don't know if this is official at all (so take this with a grain of salt) but i think i saw chalker say in the nationals event discussion that they're planning to make significant changes to sounds next year. hopefully they will do something along the lines of what you saidI don't think they would change it that much, but I think they will try to make it more difficult. Right now, the threshold for a perfect score is somewhat low, and I think it would be helpful if they made more room for variation in scores. For example, with the loudness score I think it might make sense to raise the max volume or perhaps do something like thermo heat scores where each performance is scored based on how it compares to the best performance at the competition.
edit: just realized TheSquaad (and maybe wec01) have probably already seen this bit of info in the original thread anyways, sorry for the excess post!