Any Oddball Contest Ideas?

[JAL3]

...Last man standing wins.

Rules:

1. Everyone uses the same kit and it must survive until the end (no substitutions).

2. Drag race start - launch in heats of at least 5 (or more).

3. Last glider on the ground wins the heat.

4. Contest winner must fly at least twice.

5. No spitting, kicking, biting, or eye gouging (although almost as much fun, this isn't a knife fight).


Regards,

FlyBack

That sounds like it could get nasty.

 

[JAL3]

Monocopters, cone fins, saucers, and spinning fan rockets encouraged!

Forget the contests: I WANT one of those.

Do you have any specific plans?

 

[BsSmith]

Forget the contests: I WANT one of those.

Do you have any specific plans?

No I don't.

I do know some stuff about it, PM me if you want specific details. Such as the tube sizes and such.

 

[DAllen]

Here's an idea our club may try at the next launch:

High/low contest - Fly the lowest impulse motor possible in your rocket. Then fly the highest impulse (within the rules of the range obviously) motor possible. You may not change the airframe other than adding/subtracting nose-weight as needed to ensure safe flight. Any impulse class works. The winner is determined as such:

Big Motor (Total NS) = B
Little Motor (Total NS) = L

( B - L ) / B x 100 = Percentage difference

The one with the highest % difference wins. Haven't done it yet...

-DAllen

 

[JAL3]

No I don't.

I do know some stuff about it, PM me if you want specific details. Such as the tube sizes and such.

PM sent and I keep typing due to minimum length

 

[JAL3]

Here's an idea our club may try at the next launch:

High/low contest - Fly the lowest impulse motor possible in your rocket. Then fly the highest impulse (within the rules of the range obviously) motor possible. You may not change the airframe other than adding/subtracting nose-weight as needed to ensure safe flight. Any impulse class works. The winner is determined as such:

Big Motor (Total NS) = B
Little Motor (Total NS) = L

( B - L ) / B x 100 = Percentage difference

The one with the highest % difference wins. Haven't done it yet...

-DAllen

That does sound interesting to me. I'd probably think in terms of a ....

OOPS, wouldn't want to give up my chance for victory, would I?

 

[powderburner]

How about a contest where you have to deploy--from one rocket--as many separate descent items with different recovery systems as possible. To receive points, all recovery devices must deploy (no fair packing in 200 pennies with steamers if they hit the ground in a wad). Points awarded on some sort of scale for increasing difficulty? Maybe 1 point for a streamer item, 3 points for a chute, 10 points for a glider, etc. Possibly additional points added for max altitude, or for max duration of any component, or for clustering?
Certainly going to need impulse classes; probably a D or E impulse class will be necessary to hoist these loads up to a useful altitude, but you also won't want to use K motors to deploy payloads at 10K feet.

I would suggest calling this the Flying Nightmare Event.

 

[Peartree]

How about a contest where you have to deploy--from one rocket--as many separate descent items with different recovery systems as possible. To receive points, all recovery devices must deploy (no fair packing in 200 pennies with steamers if they hit the ground in a wad). Points awarded on some sort of scale for increasing difficulty? Maybe 1 point for a streamer item, 3 points for a chute, 10 points for a glider, etc. Possibly additional points added for max altitude, or for max duration of any component, or for clustering?
Certainly going to need impulse classes; probably a D or E impulse class will be necessary to hoist these loads up to a useful altitude, but you also won't want to use K motors to deploy payloads at 10K feet.

I would suggest calling this the Flying Nightmare Event.

To avoid confetti type littering, points should only be awarded AFTER recovery.

 

[JAL3]

How about a contest where you have to deploy--from one rocket--as many separate descent items with different recovery systems as possible. To receive points, all recovery devices must deploy (no fair packing in 200 pennies with steamers if they hit the ground in a wad). Points awarded on some sort of scale for increasing difficulty? Maybe 1 point for a streamer item, 3 points for a chute, 10 points for a glider, etc. Possibly additional points added for max altitude, or for max duration of any component, or for clustering?
Certainly going to need impulse classes; probably a D or E impulse class will be necessary to hoist these loads up to a useful altitude, but you also won't want to use K motors to deploy payloads at 10K feet.

I would suggest calling this the Flying Nightmare Event.

This kind of contest that gets the creative juices flowing is what I really like to see even more than participate in.

I just had a vision of flying a K at our China Grove field. It was ugly.

 

[JAL3]

To avoid confetti type littering, points should only be awarded AFTER recovery.

That's a good point. We don't want to hack off our burn bann exempt landowner!

 

[powderburner]

To avoid confetti type littering, points should only be awarded AFTER recovery.

Definitely only award points for items returned to the check-in table.
Maybe even take point OFF for items returned by other contestants? (your own parts that YOU failed to recover)
And therefore maybe also change the name to '10K Cross-Country'

OTOH, since the deployment event will (in a sense) reveal the personality of the contestant, maybe use the name 'D-Schizo'

 

[JAL3]

Definitely only award points for items returned to the check-in table.
Maybe even take point OFF for items returned by other contestants? (your own parts that YOU failed to recover)
And therefore maybe also change the name to '10K Cross-Country'

OTOH, since the deployment event will (in a sense) reveal the personality of the contestant, maybe use the name 'D-Schizo'

That can be so cruel.

I still like the idea. This is definitely one I am going to run past my club.

Heck, I'll probably run most of them by the club but I'm going to push for this one.

That does not mean I don't still want other ideas.

 

[Peartree]

You could always have a cluster contest where increasing points are offered based on the distance of each motor from the centerline of the rocket. The

B - Moment of Inertia cluster contest

 

[JAL3]

You could always have a cluster contest where increasing points are offered based on the distance of each motor from the centerline of the rocket. The

B - Moment of Inertia cluster contest

That's a thought. One of the things I've been wanting to try is an old Estes DOM called the Flying WHy...the original one which was probably the reason for the advice to keep the clusters close together.

My insurance is paid up and it has always sounded fun.

 

[KerryQuinn]

JAL -

I have proposed a "1/8A Marble Lofting Duration" contest for an upcoming club launch in March 2010. I don't know of anyone (Micromeister?) who has tried this, but it *seems* like it should be do-able.

-Kerry

 

[jadebox]

Our Akavish series of rockets started with a contest at a SRA launch for "animal themed" rockets. I think we failed to finish our first Akavish in time for the SRA competition, though.

One of the coolest contests was an egg-loft one that NEFAR held once. A score was computed for lifting and recovering the most eggs with the smallest motor. The winner launched, and recovered without mess, something like 32 eggs on a G motor.

-- Roger

 

[The EGE]

Combination duration + spot landing.

3*duration - distance = score

How long can you keep a rocket in the air, and still bring it down near the pad?

 

[JAL3]

Wow!

Thanks for all the additional ideas.

This thread has not seen any posts in a long while but I occasionally look it over for ideas.

 

[NjCo]

The idea would be to present either a scaled-up or scaled-down version of a classic Estes or Centuri rocket (could expand to other companies as well).

How about a scale up + scale down. You need to build both and fly both.

 

[NjCo]

how about a distance competition.
a rocket has to split into at least two separate parts.
when they land, the distance between the two parts is measured, greatest distance wins.
(parasite gliders work well here)

I think it would be more interesting to not allow gliders of any type! You'll probably have to also be sure to enforce the launch angle rule as well.

 

[NjCo]

Here's an idea our club may try at the next launch:

High/low contest - Fly the lowest impulse motor possible in your rocket. Then fly the highest impulse (within the rules of the range obviously) motor possible.

You'll probably need a minimum altitude for safety I would imagine.

 

[Zack Lau]

A great way to do altitude is to deploy standard streamers, and time the descent to the ground. Silver mylar streamers are easy to track--I found they were a lot more reliable than altimeters or visual tracking. In a fun contest, who wants the hassle of lost tracks?