Landing craft suggestion

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Scenario: Two vehicles are placed on an island in a lake. Contestants begin showhere on the lake shore.

The Challenge: Build a device to capable of travelling across the lake, retrieving a vehicle, returning it to the starting point, and unloading it. The first vehicle extracted from the landing craft and moved across the finish line wins.

Options: * Let each team select the vehicle to be placed on the island. This will allow them to customize their "landing craft". * A variant of the above: Insert a land "race" component. (Basically, the teams have to select a running vehicle, not just a "mini" husk.) I would suggest this race component be pretty basic to allow the teams an opportunity to focus on the harder to develop landing craft. * Make the landing craft negotiate a course before landing on the island. * Make all team members participate in the voyage.

Benefits: * Provides an opportunity to investigate the challenges associated with moving unstable weights across bodies of water. * Any design capable of supporting a functioning car would be inherently more demanding than any prior floating vehicle. (Heavier payload, weight mgmt., onload and offload factors.) * Not only involves marine engineering concepts, but those associated with weight displacement in a fluid environment.

-- Sean McKellips (mckellips@uswest.net), January 31, 2001

Answers

This is one of the best ideas I've seen yet. It would take tremendous ingenuity, great design and build skills, and still be a challnege well worth watching. Here's hoping we see it on a future JYW!

-- Chip Haynes (ehaynes@co.pinellas.fl.us), March 19, 2001.

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