MESA does its best to ensure our specifications are as clear as possible. However, there are times during the Engineering Design Process rules need to be clarified. In those instances student participants may submit Specification Clarification Questions. Specification Clarification questions must be emailed to azmesa@email.arizona.edu. Questions should be discussed with MESA teachers prior to submission. Submitted questions should include your name, your school, and the MESA teacher should be copied on the email.
Question: Is more than one animal allowed to be used in the design of the robot?
- Response: No, the event is designed for robots to mimic only one animal.
Question: In the legal materials it says "Non waterproof materials (tape, plastic wrap, etc)" there are waterproof tapes (like flextape), and while plastic wrap doesn't make a good bowl, it does prevent the passage of water... Similarly, straws by themselves allow the passage of water, but their plastic might be considered waterproof. Can you clarify this?
- Response: First, we need to remember that the boat itself must be made primarily of paper, so the use of materials like straws in this example, depending on how much is used, could be a cause for disqualification. Secondly, many tapes and plastic wraps are inherently water resistant but not made to be specifically waterproof. So, teams could use scotch tape but not waterproof scotch tape. The difference is the intended application of the material. Anything that was specifically designed to be waterproof is not allowed. On that note, teams will need to be prepared to address materials used both on their poster and in a notebook that they bring to the competition to answer any questions that judges have about materials.
Question: Is there a length limit for the boat?
- Response: There is not a defined length for the boat. However, General Rule 5 states that "teams will start behind the starting line and time will end when the entire boat has crossed the finish line." Given that the gutter is 8 feet long and the boat must travel 6 feet, the starting area and finish area will be a maximum of 1 foot long so the boat will need to fit into these areas.
Question: Will there be a "starting line" the boat has to be behind before time starts and thus it has to move 6 feet to get to the finish regardless of length?
- Response: Yes, per General Rule 5 "A marked starting and ending line will be on the gutter."
Question: If the boat starts in contact with the gutter (say with a clip of some sort that slides on the metal, and never leaves contact...) is that just a 10 second penalty?
- Response: If the boat starts and remains in contact with the gutter than we would count that as the boat touching the sides an "infinite" number of times so the penalty would be infinite. Practically we would count that touching every 1/8 of an inch or 576 times for a penalty of 5760 seconds.
Question: What are the dimensions of the gutter for testing?
- Response: The gutters are 6 in box gutters. However, that means the width of the gutter with the lip that extends out that teams cannot touch. The functional size is 5.5 inches wide and 3.75 in depth. The length of the gutter is 8 feet.
Question: Rule #5 under GENERAL RULES states that “…the time will end when the entire boat has crossed the finish line”, which is contradictory to rule #3 under JUDGING which states “Time will stop when
any part of the boat crosses the finish line.” Which is correct?
any part of the boat crosses the finish line.” Which is correct?
- Response: Rule #5 is correct. The time will end when the entire boat has crossed the finish line.