by beonny » Mon Dec 24, 2007 6:16 pm
I've followed these last few competitions and subsequent discussions closely, especially what is and isn't allowed "in the rules".
For me, as a physics teacher, the appeal of the game was that it was a pretty accurate representation of the laws of physics. A game I had a chance of figuring out through logical thought!
Vankwish's solution to this level just defies all logic. Although he says it is allowed within the rules (and, after reading the comments, I tend to agree with him) it obviously wouldn't happen in the real world. It is exploiting a bug in the physics engine.
FF's winning "light" solution to Momentum has the same issue. I was amazed when I saw it, and quite impressed. Scientifically, in some ways, there is nothing too wrong with it; as the centre of mass of the metal bar lowers, the centre of mass of the ball raises, so it does not break any laws of thermodynamics. But it does break a rather obvious law of physics - you can't move cloth through metal! It therefore exploits a bug in the engine.
Someone would only be able to compete with you guys if they had spent hours and hours exploring the intricacies of the game, rather than by having a good sense of structural engineering. That has just made this whole competition a load less appealing to me.
In my opinion, the community should make any case of overlapping materials "dark". Perhaps there is even a case to open up a third category of solution that includes ?welding? but no rotation devices. Either way, without making this change, the competitions will continue to get less and less appealing to new players. And as I understand it, that is a current problem.
I was thinking of introducing this game at my school, where a number of potential engineering students would get to see it. I would be much more reluctant to do so if the competitions did not reward scientifically correct solutions, but instead rewarded hours of playing the game.
Cheers,
Ben