2011-2012 Rules

[illusionist]

I don't see a problem with steering. They've done enough testing and work to ensure that their helicopter flies well, and also flies well with the extra tether. I think they should be able to protect their long hours of work. If you're like me, you've got skin on your helicopter, so mine is a little part of me. I don't want that getting stuck in some girders.

[new horizon]

haha I know how you feel, I'm extremely paranoid working around my helicopter/when others are using my helicopter because I know how much work goes into making one. I know how frustrating it is to have bad luck, though. But you always want to be prepared with multiple backups, etc.
I don't test in a gym, we use an area with a flat ceiling so girders have never been a problem until competition. But I've noticed there are a lot of calculated risks regarding helicopters at competition, what height you want to balance it to, how much torque you want, if you want to do a safer run or a riskier run. Using a tether would completely eliminate this and to me balancing these risks are a large part of this event (as they were with all flight events) so if a tether was allowed, I feel it would eliminate a lot of the strategy part of the event. Competing in helicopters is a lot of fun and really exciting for me because you can't really predict anything and the fact that you have to do a lot of thinking of what your strategy is to get the highest time out of 2 tries. A tether would really kill that because everyone's goal will be: get the highest torque possible and the most winds, attach it to a tether and send it off. It would be awfully boring to participate in an event like that.

[illusionist]

I completely see your point. On-the-spot decision making is a key factor in these kinds of events. Plus, the lack of a tether is a crowd pleaser.

[new horizon]

Yeah, that's why I would be really against the use of a tether. I'm hoping it's not going to be discussed as a major change for the event or that would really make helicopters really tedious.

I'm really excited for the event next year though I don't see much you can change beside having a payload, and even so that would be difficult to implement. I don't believe wright stuff had a dramatic change from year to year? Correct me if I'm wrong.

[illusionist]

The payload might not be the right idea for helicopters. That would certainly be a good challenge for Wright Stuff though. Maybe we could do something with Ornithopters in the future? I think that has been a trial event, but never an actual event.

[chalker7]

Yeah, that's why I would be really against the use of a tether. I'm hoping it's not going to be discussed as a major change for the event or that would really make helicopters really tedious.

I'm really excited for the event next year though I don't see much you can change beside having a payload, and even so that would be difficult to implement. I don't believe wright stuff had a dramatic change from year to year? Correct me if I'm wrong.

If a tether rule were to be implemented it would certainly not be a requirement, but only an option for teams so any tedium would be up to the individual.

Wright Stuff would have significant changes every year. Primarily, dimensions would change to prevent teams from reusing airplanes from previous years. There were frequently other changes that addressed the general task. Off the top of my head these included, depending on the year, allowing biplanes, a rise off ground task, the ribbon drop and bonuses for pushers/canards. There may have been more as well but if so they are slipping my memory currently.

[new horizon]

If a tether rule were to be implemented it would certainly not be a requirement, but only an option for teams so any tedium would be up to the individual.

Wright Stuff would have significant changes every year. Primarily, dimensions would change to prevent teams from reusing airplanes from previous years. There were frequently other changes that addressed the general task. Off the top of my head these included, depending on the year, allowing biplanes, a rise off ground task, the ribbon drop and bonuses for pushers/canards. There may have been more as well but if so they are slipping my memory currently.

The unfortunate thing of allowing people to use a tether is the mass wouldn't be an awful lot and that only matters if the mass of the tether is not counted to the helicopter's mass. However, the mass is negligible to the benefits a tether could bring regarding teams flying helicopters at maximum torque to have the helicopter be suspended right below the girders versus without a tether you would have to sacrifice some of your launch torque to be able to accomplish the same feat. So if a tether is allowed under any conditions, I'd think a good majority, if not all, the teams will be using the tether because it does provide more benefits than drawbacks (unless the team is seriously lucky enough so that they choose to launch at max torque and not get caught on a girder). SO is after all a competition, and the goal of everyone is to have a better time than the other teams. Therefore if I were allowed to use a tether, and if my flight times for my safety runs were let's say 10 or 20 seconds better than without a tether, of course I would want to use a tether... no matter how bored I would be of tethered flights.

[chalker7]

New horizon, I think many of us are looking at things from different points of view. Do you think the central excitement from flying helicopters come from bouncing around the ceiling? Put another way, is the principal interest in the helicopter event watching them risk getting hung up or broken on a girder?

I would say the primary excitement comes from seeing them stay aloft for a long time on a single rubber band, but that is only my opinion.

[new horizon]

The central excitement of the competition for me is the strategy and on the spot decisions needed to get the highest run, the planning of strategy and discussion used in our testing and trim flights to see how we can get the highest time without hitting the barriers, I guess making the best of what we have. That's really exciting for me, at least. Of course I don't enjoy seeing my helicopters or other helicopters land in the rafters and of course I do like seeing good flights . But the fact of having every run being perfect with a tether doesn't reflect the true nature of the event, and it would give a lot less to the students if all their flights were absolutely perfect without any thought of strategy with their safety flights and trim flights.

[chalker]

I think everyone has missed the obvious best option for changes next year: Sumo Helicopters! 2 copters enter the ring - only 1 leaves intact;)

[smartkid222]

I read somewhere that at one specific competition many helicopters, including the helicopters belonging to the first place team, got stuck in the ceiling. These students, who may have worked extremely hard on the helicopters and were successful in test flight where the ceiling was more favorable (such as a hallway, classroom), were doomed to fail simply because of the conditions at the competition. Yes every team was at a disadvantage but I think that the goal of science olympiad is to have hard work pay off and the teams that deserve to win, win. Due to the "luck/chance aspect of the event" one team may have a poor helicopter that gets lucky and does fairly well, and another team that had a very good helicopter that gets stuck or runs into other such problems and does worse. North Carolina's decision to allow tethering is one approach to solving this problem.

To those who are opposed to tethering:
Where do you fly your helicopter? Have you flown in a gym with a poor ceiling? Have you experienced getting your helicopter stuck in the ceiling and then having to take time-consuming measures to get it down, only to receive broken pieces of your helicopter, which was the accumulation of hours of testing and building? (I'm not saying any of these have happened to me, but these are plausible situations)

If you fly in a nice gym, try to realize that there are gyms that are much worse. I have seen gyms that have girders with only about 2 feet separation between them (making it nearly impossible to fly without hitting them, even with a perfect launch and helicopter) and other gyms with 3+ inch nails coming out of the ceiling (not joking).

[smartkid222]

Sorry for the double post but I wanted to add:
IMO, The most favorable solution would be to just hold the competition in a room with a flat surface (no girders) to begin with, even if this room has a lower height than a gym! However, I realize that a clause in the rules mandating this may not be plausable: some teams would argue that it is not fair because they need height and event coordinators would argue that such a venue is not available. Thus, NC chose to allow tethering which works in any venue and is provided by the competitors.

[illusionist]

I think everyone has missed the obvious best option for changes next year: Sumo Helicopters! 2 copters enter the ring - only 1 leaves intact;)

I think that is the best idea I have seen here! I'm totally up for it!

Also, the flat ceiling would in my opinion be the best area, such as a classroom or lecture hall. Not all teams will design a probe into their design, which I would say is their fault. They need to prepare for all possible conditions.

[new horizon]

I think everyone has missed the obvious best option for changes next year: Sumo Helicopters! 2 copters enter the ring - only 1 leaves intact;)

haha my coach said an event somewhat like trajectory where the goal was to shoot down helicopters that belong to other teams should be an event. xD That was a pretty clever idea.

@ smartkid, the area we used at regionals this year was horrible. So many ceiling obstructions, it wasn't even a gym but more like a foyer area with girders so if the door was opened air would come in and the helicopters would get nasty times. And my first helicopter got stuck on the gym girder and that was really frustrating so then we decided to test in a different place. But the thing is, we knew it would be unwise to send a helicopter full torque into that type of environment. So we dewinded a few times and it achieved the same result as tethering. Sure we could have risked it and tried our luck to see our helicopter break into pieces. So our placement at regionals did not depend on our luck but more of calculated risk and a lot of testing to get the result we wanted. So the main argument I have against tethering is if you can achieve the same result using other means, why tether? I wasn't a large part of wright stuff but I do know you had to do the same torque testing and testing of angle of attack to get it to as high as possible without it hitting the girders (and that's how the national winners won by getting it very high on the 90ft UIUC gym) . This assessment of risk you do when doing this event is a large part of it and tethering would completely get rid of it, unless there was a score reduction on using a tether (let's say 15%) so you would have to assess the risk of a score reduction by using a tethering device.

[aubrey048]

I think everyone has missed the obvious best option for changes next year: Sumo Helicopters! 2 copters enter the ring - only 1 leaves intact;)

Haha that would be amazing. I'd sign up. My helicopter survives surprisingly well when it crashes into stuff. It would do well at that event. ^^