So… you some teams with a string launchers, getting ready for your first tournament this weekend, and then on Tuesday then BAM! surprise update!
Does anyone have any initial good ideas for lightweight 1/8 rope/string that would work well on a string launcher last minute? Links or store locations if possible would be great.
Disappoint in you Mr. Helgesen. The search bar is your friend:
For years, the rule has always been 1/8 inch braided nylon rope, in other words “paracord” or something similar. Veteran teams typically have yards and yards of this stuff laying around the shop. For this game, you can get colored paracord at Hobby Lobby or your favorite craft store and make the referees job a little easier.
If your design use a some sort of preloaded string cannons, then do the refs a favor by getting red and blue! Otherwise, maybe pick a unique color like green or yellow so that your robot is easily distinguished from a team that is using red or blue. If everybody is going to use white paracord, get ready to spend until 8:00 p.m. at your tournaments while the referees try to score all the spaghetti!
I think this season the rule went towards more creative solutions, yarn, fishlines, kite strings, … I took what I saw as different approaches to end game I saw in competition and discussed with club today. Of course as I was speaking to kids, GDC released unscheduled game manual - all good. Teams will figure out right recipe for rope and weight ratio for each launching mechanism…
In anticipation ordered many spools of red and blue material!
@lacsap Do you mind sharing a link with what you ordered? Just trying to get an idea of what we should be getting as well.
I would use kite string because the yarn is too loose and fishing line is too stiff.
You should check out yesterday’s manual update. Both of those materials are no longer legal. String now has to have a diameter between 1/8 and 1/4 inch.
Middle school teams, so paracord simple enough
100’ spool of red and 100’ blue. Hopefully my math was correct in diameter,
The 650 paracord of diameter is 5/32”
4/32" of an inch is 1/8". 8/32" of an inch is 1/4". This looks like it is correct.
I was just at the blue flavor builder store, and this type cord was $0.12/foot for blue, and (inexplicably) $0.19/foot for red. Your price checks out. : )
This is why I’m glad our robot is not even to that point. we thought about working on our string launcher but decided to improve on some things first.
I feel like I’m missing something. Were changes made to the game manual?
These are detailed in the Game Manual release post and in the new release of the Game Manual.
Please read these as both answers what changes were made.
Thank You!
20characters
I picked up some paracord 550 from the hardware store yesterday. It works well, even though it is 4x the weight of my paracord 95.
#72 nylon twine should pass inspection for 1/8" dia or 3mm.
My team was looking into Paracord as an option for our end-game expansion, but after our original string was deemed illegal because of the nov 1 rules we thought it would be best to ask the forum to clarify that if the packaging says 1/8 inch but the string is flat(sort of like shoe laces) that it would still count even though it’s no longer a cylinder shape. Any incite would be appreciated.
Clarification of rules happen on the Official Q&A - please look there as there is a question directly relating to flat string. It was not answered last time I looked. From a common sense perspective, I would err on the side of round string until Q&A answered.
This is the rope that we use, to decent success. It’s cheap, doesn’t fray if you burn the ends, compacts pretty small, and you can order it with alliance colors.