Design Competition 2011 - Volunteers?

[aitong]

Does anyone have a pointer to the current judging criteria?

[Carl Nott]

Does anyone have a pointer to the current judging criteria?

This post has a link to last year's. http://cmubuggy.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3393#p3393

[TommyK]

While I was in school I seem to recall that we won "People's Choice" pretty consistently. That was all the "prettiness" validation I ever needed.

Wasn't then when every vote in the people's choice competition cost a quarter?

[ipmcc]

As far as I recall it was free, cause they were letting the pre-school kids vote, and I can't imagine the pre-schoolers ponying up a quarter a head, but what do I know? By Thursday, I would normally be operating on minimal sleep.

[GraydonL]

I'll dive in.

I'd even sign an NDA so fringe doesn't freak out.

Do you think Fringe wouldn't compete even if the judges were every other orgs head mechanics? They aren't the ones sitting out dispite current judges affiliations or loose lips.

I think Fringe has an idea that pretty buggies spur involvement. That may be true, but we didn't do it because we didn't need to and it didn't help our program.

This is a minor point, but that's bad science. You can't know it didn't help because you never tried it.

I have tried it. And it doesn't. Make it pretty so that your future wife will let you hang it in your living room.

My idea for improving design: hold it friday afternoon, after prelims...If my hatch needs a big piece of duct tape, the judge will see it. If my entrant has stability issues in the chute, those will be hard to miss. If my design is not rolling 'a' team for at least one gender, that should matter as well (in a bad way). If it rolls 9+ windows, that is some positive design proof.

I hardily agree. Finally being an alum, I can dismiss the arguement that it would be extremely taxing on a mechanic to do both races and design comp in the same day. It would make Friday heaven for alumni who get to watch. Also it'll give Fringe an extra night to maybe get their buggy painted for raceday.

But I offer these words of caution: Don't complain when your buggy gets run into the bails by another team in prelims and you don't have time to fix it before design comp. Also, besides the first point, the others don't necessarily indicate a good or bad design, they are also dependant on the pushers and/or drivers. Design comp is the one competition mechanics have where they aren't relying on less involved drivers/pushers who don't have the decency to stay sober before their big day. Lastly, some buggies aren't designed to be the fastest, some are designed to test steering or wheels or brakes or manufactuing methods or materials. Some are supposed to be that buggy that you don't have to take a look at before rolls because you know nothing is loose, you know nothing is going to break, and so what if it's never been A team? It's a perfect B/C/D team buggy.

The biggest threat to buggy is lack of interest. I think holding Friday as a day long event would get more publicity for the races and design.

My vote for the judges: people who can hand out jobs when impressed by a well designed gravity and man powered racing vehicle.