Junkyard Challenge B

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Junkyard Challenge B

Post by Jim_R »

Discussion for Junkyard Challenge B.

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Re: Junkyard Challenge B

Post by gyourkoshaven »

Kicking off the thread: This looks REALLY fun.

If you don't have rules yet, the purpose of this is to drop a golf ball in the center of a device, and then somehow have 4 mousetraps snap in a certain order within 1 minute, but a bonus is to go as long as you can in the 1 minute (I think it's a 118 pt. bonus if you were to do it in 59 secs).

Ideas and thoughts?
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2008: Regionals-3, States-5
2009: Regionals-2, States-4
2010: Regionals-1, States-2, Nationals-19 :)
2011 (Co-captain): Regionals-1, States-1, Nationals-11 :D

Nationals: Aquifers-37, Compute This-13, Dynamic Planet-25, Ecology-6, Experimental Design-7, Junkyard-33

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Re: Junkyard Challenge B

Post by AlphaTauri »

Yes, this looks really fun. I'm probably not going to be in it, but who knows?

Couldn't you do it like this, only activate it by dropping the golf ball in the middle and have the arms go down instead of up?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntZiELo0kuU

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Re: Junkyard Challenge B

Post by Uncle Fester »

About the only thing linking the video with the 09-10 event are the "four parts".

In short, what you're doing is:
assemble the thing on-site with all parts and tools crammed inside a box
drop the ball
snap mousetrap #1
snap mousetrap #2
snap mousetrap #3
snap mousetrap #4
and take a specified amount of time doing it.

Assorted penalties for stuff like mousetraps bouncing around, traps not snapping in correct order, timing being off, traps not being the correct distance from the center, etc.

20-way tie for first place!
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Re: Junkyard Challenge B

Post by gyourkoshaven »

I see your point, however, you did over exaggerate to an extent.

Scoring works like this:
55 points for the device being legal, labeled, fits in 40*40*60 cube etc.
100 points for finishing building in 30 minutes
17 points for correctly aligning the mousetraps
58 points for starting the task
60 points for setting off all 4 mousetraps in 1 minute.

Then bonuses:
2 points for each second that the device operates under 1 minute
42 points if it operates for 5 seconds before setting off 1st trap
35 points for each mousetrap tripped by the device (This is vague, let me know what they say if you send in a rule clarification on this)
Then you can get up to 250 points for tripping the traps in the order of N, S, W, E (N is worth 25, S is worth 50, W is worth 75, E is worth 100)

I personally don't see anything on a penalty for the mousetrap bouncing around, but let me know if I am.

18 point penalty each time the device is touched
8 points per cm that the mousetrap is off from defined distance (If this is what you mean by that, I take this as aligned before the device starts operating, and it doesn't matter where it goes after it snaps.

The impound is going to be annoying though, since the box is so small, nothing will fit if it's put together beforehand.

Also, (Eyeball can yell at me for looking too far ahead here) but how would I go about finding a formula for how long my tubes should be/how heavy my marbles should be, etc. for the National level, where the lengths can differ from mousetrap to mousetrap? Thanks.
Strath Haven MS:
2008: Regionals-3, States-5
2009: Regionals-2, States-4
2010: Regionals-1, States-2, Nationals-19 :)
2011 (Co-captain): Regionals-1, States-1, Nationals-11 :D

Nationals: Aquifers-37, Compute This-13, Dynamic Planet-25, Ecology-6, Experimental Design-7, Junkyard-33

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Re: Junkyard Challenge B

Post by AlphaTauri »

Yeah, I guess I did exaggerate a little.

Anyways,
gyourkoshaven wrote:35 points for each mousetrap tripped by the device (This is vague, let me know what they say if you send in a rule clarification on this)
I think this means that if you only trip 3 traps (say the marble rolls off someplace) you only get 105 points instead of the 140 you would have got if all 4 traps were tripped. (Don't trust me on rules clarifications. I have a tendency to misinterpret the rules.)
gyourkoshaven wrote:The impound is going to be annoying though, since the box is so small, nothing will fit if it's put together beforehand.
Couldn't you bring telescoping tubes though and just tape them to the correct length during the 30-minute build period?
gyourkoshaven wrote:Also, (Eyeball can yell at me for looking too far ahead here) but how would I go about finding a formula for how long my tubes should be/how heavy my marbles should be, etc. for the National level, where the lengths can differ from mousetrap to mousetrap? Thanks.
Get a stopwatch and test it out? I don't know of any actual formulas for this kind of thing because there are so many variables (material of tube, size/weight of marble, etc.).
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Re: Junkyard Challenge B

Post by gyourkoshaven »

AlphaTauri wrote:
gyourkoshaven wrote:35 points for each mousetrap tripped by the device (This is vague, let me know what they say if you send in a rule clarification on this)
I think this means that if you only trip 3 traps (say the marble rolls off someplace) you only get 105 points instead of the 140 you would have got if all 4 traps were tripped. (Don't trust me on rules clarifications. I have a tendency to misinterpret the rules.)
Sorry, I was inferring to how directly the mousetrap has to be tripped by the device.

AlphaTauri wrote:
gyourkoshaven wrote:Also, (Eyeball can yell at me for looking too far ahead here) but how would I go about finding a formula for how long my tubes should be/how heavy my marbles should be, etc. for the National level, where the lengths can differ from mousetrap to mousetrap? Thanks.
Get a stopwatch and test it out? I don't know of any actual formulas for this kind of thing because there are so many variables (material of tube, size/weight of marble, etc.).
Again, sorry for the confusion, in this case I was thinking more along the lines of: How much should I stall by making the tubes go sideways, instead of vertically? Especially since the longest distance could be the one that needs to be tripped 1st for the 25 points. I could time, but with combinations of 4 numbers from 30-60, in which the order of them counts, testing would take too long, even for a person with only 1 event.
Strath Haven MS:
2008: Regionals-3, States-5
2009: Regionals-2, States-4
2010: Regionals-1, States-2, Nationals-19 :)
2011 (Co-captain): Regionals-1, States-1, Nationals-11 :D

Nationals: Aquifers-37, Compute This-13, Dynamic Planet-25, Ecology-6, Experimental Design-7, Junkyard-33

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Re: Junkyard Challenge B

Post by nejanimb »

Is there some catch to the rules that I'm not seeing? This event looks incredibly easy... I went back to help my middle school with this, and it looks like you could build a device in a couple hours that would get a perfect score every time... there's gotta be some part to the rules that I'm missing?
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Re: Junkyard Challenge B

Post by gyourkoshaven »

It's going to come down to the time tiebreaker at good competitions.

Whoever gets the closest to 59 seconds wins...

And I guess you could construct incorrectly?

But yes, I like this event a LOT for the difficulty level. (Watch me struggle like heck with this :P )
Strath Haven MS:
2008: Regionals-3, States-5
2009: Regionals-2, States-4
2010: Regionals-1, States-2, Nationals-19 :)
2011 (Co-captain): Regionals-1, States-1, Nationals-11 :D

Nationals: Aquifers-37, Compute This-13, Dynamic Planet-25, Ecology-6, Experimental Design-7, Junkyard-33

Moving to C...
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Re: Junkyard Challenge B

Post by nejanimb »

Obviously it'll come down to time (Q: is it better to have 60.000 or 59?), I just feel like it'll be really really easy to get the 59.99 or whatever you need...
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