Virtual Rocket Contest XI

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Hey Doug/Nick-

Are the results going to be coming up soon? Is Nick travelling and unavailable to post the results?
 
Yeah, even though I don't expect to win this time, I am anxious to see the results posted. I won't say the suspense is killing me, but it is making me slightly feverish.
 
Event 1 has been submitted, but Nick hasn't posted it. Going submit Event 2 today (working on it now). I had it ready but realized I made a mistake with all the sims in Event 2, so I have to do them all again.... (forgot the payload).

Oh, Bob... you got <static> place in event 1 =D.
 
Originally posted by BobCox
Yeah, even though I don't expect to win this time, I am anxious to see the results posted. I won't say the suspense is killing me, but it is making me slightly feverish.
Click to expand...

IT'S KILLING ME !!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
180,000+ altitudes? Maybe the next contest theme needs to be something like the X-prize, since we're more than halfway there.

Nice job Todd & Bruce! Looks like the Age of Zeus is finally over. Start working on your evil laughs.

--Chan Stevens
 
off shore island 10,000 feet (up-wind) from the shoreline.
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Four contestants apparently got confused where an island would be if it was upwind from you. Of the five contestants that did do it right, only two of them landed on the island.

I can understand where the confusion is:

"„X Landing at 10,000 feet is perfect
„X Landing at 10,500 feet is okay
„X Landing at 9,999 or 10,501 is zero points "

A positive number is downwind, not upwind. -10,000 to -10,500 is what I was looking for in the sims... I did not realize that till after I started running the sims =(

Of the four ppl that got confused, only two landed withen 10,000 - 10,500 feet.

So, I have a question..

Should I make all results positive, and disregard wether or not the island is upwind or downwind, or should I DQ the ppl that got confused :(.
 
Doug,

The Prometheus decals are still wrong! Try using the newer file I sent for the Payload section (Virtual11SprayForward.jpg)

Chan,

Funny you should mention the X-Prize. With the availablity of O motors and certainly with the imminent release of a P motor, it should be possible to launch a model rocket above the earths atmosphere! This would be a "model rocket" only in the sense that it uses comercially available motors and hardware. Take a look at my design (attached) that was disqualified from this competition, it reached 64 miles AGL on 19 O motors without staging. With staging 20-O motors would probably put a flight up even higher and reach outer space. The cost of this flight would be around $70,000. I wonder if anyone is actually up to trying to put a model rocket into outer space (calling Eric Gates and the Myth Busters)? This task is way beyond my budget, but I would gladly run the sims for the flight, since I think I have the software and knowledge to do this!

Bruce S. Levison, NAR #69055
 
Of the 5 that were up-wind, did the three DQ'ed fly over the island? Would you have more qualified contestans if you made this into a spot landing event closest to 10,000ft up or down wind? Having only two qualified flights is not much of a contest. You still probably should penalize anyone who came up short of the 10,000ft goal.

Bruce S. Levison, NAR #69055
 
So it looks like we have four groups:

5 people went into the wind (negative direction). Of those,
__ 2 landed between -10500 and -10000, and
__ 3 missed the island.
4 people went with the wind (positive direction). Of those,
__ 2 landed between +10000 and +10500, and
__ 2 missed the (wrong) island.

So there are 5 people who clearly DQ'd because they were outside the 10-10.5k range. The question is should you DQ another two who went the right distance but in the wrong direction?

My (admittedly biased) opinion is that only two people succeeded in this event. I thought the directions were pretty clear.
... they need to deliver important medial supplies to an off shore island 10,000 feet (up-wind) from the shoreline.
Click to expand...

If I was the judge, the only exception I might make is due to this wording below:
(Launch angle limited to +/- 20 degrees. Be sure to give the proper "plus" or "minus" sign indication. If no sign is specified, we will assume you wanted "minus", into the wind.)
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Even then, I would probably only allow it for newbies.

The first two events were all about raw power. The last two were supposed to be about taming that power. I hope you stick to the rules as written.
 
Most ppl came short of the island. One guy missed it by only 6ft! Everyone got best of three =(.

Problem is the two ppl that landed on the wrong island got a "better" score than the two ppl that landed on the right island. That will knock the two ppl that got it right and scored to third and forth place =(.

Hard decision =(
 
Okay... Knowing that I was one of the ones who launched the "wrong" direction, I'd say that it needs to be included.

A positive landing in feet to me would seem to be upwind with a negative being downwind, not the other way around! I don't know if I hit the island or not, it way kinda dicey in my sims whether I hit it or not, but I know that Andy Peart took his lead from my direction and thus fired the wrong way as well....

I just opened up Rocksim and played with it a bit and I do realize that I goofed! However, this is only really evidant if you watch the flight in the 2D profile, not from just running the sims! With my sims taking sooo much computing power for such large clusters, I admit I didn't use this function as it took FOREVER to run the sims... It still seems backwards to me though! Up should be positive and down should be negative! If I get penalizedon this one, it's fair (but obviously I'd rather not...) Participate in a new contest, learn something new...
 
I'm one of those newbies and the way I read the directions (which I didn't always read...stupid me) was that the island was upwind and at -10,000 feet. It made sense to me as I've used the 2D simulations before and knew upwind was to the left (negitive X axis) It also said in the instructions that if you left off the +/- modified on your angle, it was assumed to be negative (into the wind)

As I don't know if I was one of the few that made it (somehow I doubt it) I would go with the rules as they stand. The island was between -10,000 and -10,500

My $0.02

-Aaron
 
Doug,

How about this:

The two on the island get 1st and 2nd place based on their placement closest to the goal. Those in correct direction get the next three places based on closeness to the goal of -10,000ft for 3rd, 4th and 5th place finishes. Those in the wrong direction get points based in the same manner, for 6 th and 7th place would be the the two between 10,000 and 10,500 and the next two would get their places based on how close they were to 10,000 for 8th and 9th place. That way nobody is DQed and their work to attain a goal gets recognized.

Bruce S. Levison, NAR #69055
 
(Launch angle limited to +/- 20 degrees. Be sure to give the proper "plus" or "minus" sign indication. If no sign is specified, we will assume you wanted "minus", into the wind.)
Click to expand...

Ok, I made my decision. Except for one entry, I am going to keep things the way they are. The entry that is the exception did not specify +/- for their angle, so I am going rerun their sims with a - instead of a +.

Event 3 and 4 will be submitted tonight.
 
Well... I can't exactly say I'm pleased with that ruling... It seems to me that if almost half of the people in the contest went the wrong way, some kind of allowance should have been made. This was a tough ruling and I'm glad I didn't have to make it. I would've probably gone soft and switched the signs. But, I respect your ruling Doug. Thanks for making the hard decesion....

The main consolation here is that only 2 people are going to get points on this one because everyone else DQ'd so there might be some hope of a respectable finish still...

On to event 4!
 
I just ran some very unofficial scoring scenarios.

After placing first in the first two events, Bruce is clearly in the driver's seat. If Bruce and Todd both missed the island, Bruce can come in 1st or 2nd in Event 4 and still win, regardless of what anybody else does. If Bruce hit the island, he probably doesn't even need to show up for the last event.

Todd is in good shape, though. His 2nd-place lead over the next-closest competitor is bigger than Bruce's lead over Todd. He still has a reasonable chance at 1st overall and very good chance at a top-3 finish even if he missed the island.

I am not sitting very pretty back in 7th place after 2 events. The only way I can still win is if I place 1st in Events 3 and 4 AND Bruce misses the island AND Bruce scores no better than 3rd in Event 4 AND nobody else does well in the last two event.
It looks highly likely that I will be handing my crown to a new champion.
 
It all comes down to luck; I was hitting the island about 50% of the time, the rest of the time my flights fell short. Hopefully the best of three tries gave me a qualifying flight! There was no way I could go low in event 4, but I did get the slow part!

Bruce S. Levison, NAR #69055
 
I was hitting the island 100% of the time between 200 and 300 feet into it. I also was getting between 1020 and 1050 feet for an altitude (with about 150 ft/s speed) in the last event so I hope I'll be doing well in those.

When looking at all 4 events, theres almost no way to win 1st in all 4, so I decided to try for 1st in as many as possible. Winning events 2, 3 and 4 is very possible, but not if you also go for event 1.

I'm a newbie to all this....I could be REALLY wrong....or just plain lucky.

-Aaron
 
Originally posted by BobCox

Todd is in good shape, though. His 2nd-place lead over the next-closest competitor is bigger than Bruce's lead over Todd. He still has a reasonable chance at 1st overall and very good chance at a top-3 finish even if he missed the island.
Click to expand...

I know I missed the island...by about 20,000 ft. I know I fired my rocket 180 degrees the wrong way which sucks. Only in a virtual world would this happen because in the real world, I would have been able to see the island that I was launching at...

Bruce is definitely due for a win and his innovative design is outstanding. I had a good chance of a top three place (which was my goal) if the judege's ruling on upwind/downwind had gone my way, but now, I'm pretty sure I'm out of contention....:(
 
Do to an error on my part, I may have to redo someones entry in event two, which may affect Bob's guestimation.

Submitting entry 3 and 4 has been delayed because I am confused about two different entries for event 4, so I am going through all the e-mails I got from those two contestants... which was not on the computer I was using..

So... I am hoping to get everything wrapped up today, Wednesday at the latest cause Tuesday I am booked with work related stuff ><

This is not as easy as it looks ><
 
Originally posted by BobCox
The only way I can still win is if I place 1st in Events 3 and 4 AND Bruce misses the island AND Bruce scores no better than 3rd in Event 4
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All the sims are finalized :). I will be typing of the finishing notes tomorrow and submitting them to EMRR for publications.

The Error I made did not affect the placings in event 2.

Bob, I will not reveal the results till they are published... but I must say, you might want to go buy a lotto ticket.

Very exciting contest.
 
Originally posted by heada
I was hitting the island 100% of the time between 200 and 300 feet into it.
Click to expand...
Me too.
I also was getting between 1020 and 1050 feet for an altitude (with about 150 ft/s speed) in the last event so I hope I'll be doing well in those.
Click to expand...
I was a little bit lower but not nearly as slow.
When looking at all 4 events, theres almost no way to win 1st in all 4, so I decided to try for 1st in as many as possible. Winning events 2, 3 and 4 is very possible, but not if you also go for event 1.
Click to expand...
Wow, you're right, that is a good strategy. It looks like most people went for max alititude in Event 2, but you went for closest-to-the-pad. Since they both counted equally, that's a pretty good idea and it looks like it worked pretty well for you. With your smaller motors and heavy mass, you should do well in the other two events.

My thought process went a little differently. I started out with a very efficient light-weight low-drag design for Event 1, then found out that it was way underpowered with the 10-lb payload in Event 2. At that point I figured that going to the other extreme (heavy rocket with lots of thrust) would make the payload weight nearly irrelevant. This turned out to be a good idea. Bruce and Todd took this to the extreme with their 150mm motors and scored very well in the first two events.

The downside to having so much impulse is that it is hard to control in the last two events. We shall soon see how that affected the final results.
 
Originally posted by n3tjm
All the sims are finalized :). I will be typing of the finishing notes tomorrow and submitting them to EMRR for publications.
Click to expand...

Once you send them I'll get them posted as soon as possible, however, I'm now on California time and with full packed days.

Your lotto comment is interesting.... looking forward to seeing these results.

Nick
 
Personally, the problem with 5 people going in the wrong direction was due to the way the 10,000 and 10,500 feet mark was labeled. The way the actual values were written, the 5 that went in the wrong direction were actually right. Using an x/y plane as Rocksim basically does for the 2D simulations, 10,000 and 10,500 is in the positive zone of the x-axis (to the right). This is why I went in the wrong direction. I don't know where my flight was, but just something to note in the future to prevent mixups. The best way to have entered the data would have been to specify it needed to be within -10,000 and -10,500 feet, placing the target to the left of the axis.

IMHO ambiguous instructions. But your decision has been made and is final. But that is where I made the mistake, by following the numbers.
 

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