Rocket League finals (5/25/2004)
Here's a brief report on the Rocket League finals, which were
Tuesday evening.
We had about 70 teams participating (they didn't all return their
scoresheets), and made about 120 flights. The main objective was to
launch a rover toward a fixed target 100' from the launch pad, and
have it land successfully and move toward the target while making
measurements of some kind. A typical advanced rover was a zip-zap RC
car with an aquarium thermometer stuck to it along with some sort of
windsock and maybe pH paper, a compass, a magnet or double sticky
tape (dust collectors). We gave points for pretty much anything that
could measure anything, if the kids could tell the story.
There was a lot of creativity, and very little emulation of what
NASA might do (for example, there was only one example of a split
nose cone ejecting a rover). Some teams dropped a bouncing ball with
from their rocket, others put wheels on the nose cone, flew gliders,
or rubber-band powered lego vehicles. One team flew hissing
cockroaches with a streamer and sensors affixed to their
backs--these were ejected at apogee (which was deliberately kept
low, the better to get near the target). They proved self-righting,
durable, and capable of movement across the terrain, and scored
quite well.
Being an RSO in this competition is challenging, because a lot of
weird looking asymmetrical rockets fly pretty well. You can hang a
superball or a zip zap on a string outside of the nosecone of an
AstroSat, and it will go straight up (more or less) every time! But
it's less likely to be successful if it's hung at the mid-body
joint.
Similarly, rockets flew with cars sticking out the top, with bugs
and beads taped to the side, and with flat plates as nose cones.
That's the flavor of it; there are pictures up on the
website--check out the links on the Teams page and the photos on the
Launch Photos page, both of which can be reached from http://www.hightechkids.org/IRL2004/index.htm
[Ted Cochran]
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