Re: Prop mods or damage repair?

From: Jim Fackert <jfackert_at_cac.net>
Date: Tue, 05 Dec 2006 16:53:51 -0500

Robert Clemens wrote:
>
  give me some credit to be able to
> distinguish between a repaired prop and one that's been purposefully broken
> or cut so its blades could be re-pitched.

Jeese, its hard to be an SO judge. I'm not being facetious! it really
is, and I really appreciate those who stick their necks out to do it and
give smart kids great experiences.
The whole SO "teacher fairness philosophy based thinking" thing is not
compatible with a competition based event, So if the whole idea of SO is
to give nerds some experience at competition and winning and losing and
working hard at challenging stuff, but its run by teachers, its
inherently conflicted. Engineering is not about playing by the rules,
its about achieving goals that most thought weren't achievable by
re-thinking the rules. So engineering events in SO are doubly conflicted.

  Not to pick nits, but the distinction between accidentally broken and
intentionally broken props seems to be based on intent rather than on
preventing someone from gaining unfair advantage. So we crash a plane
until we have broken prop spars on a few props and then we fix em as
best we can, carefully setting prop pitch to optimum. Can you honestly
DQ us for that? Can you honestly discern the team's intent? Can you
take away a first place state medal based on that? It would break my
heart to do it.

No, I don't think --anyone-- can reliably distinguish between
accidentally broken and repaired props and deliberately broken and
repaired props. No way.
That's why judges need to allow some flexibility in enforcing the rules.
Received on Tue Dec 05 2006 - 14:01:28 CET