🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3lir4u$oe9@ns.mcs.kent.edu> 
rheschel@Phoenix.kent.edu (Fusion) writes:
>
> Im surprised the moderator let you hang on the Net.
>Cheeting in High School! For shame!

If they were asking for help on a take-home exam, it is one thing, but 
it was the teacher making the original request!  If the rules of the 
competition allow the students to consult with their teachers, they 
probably also allow talking to parents and mentors working with the
school.  (Many schools have mentoring programs where local professionals 
visit classes or the students visit them at work to collaborate on 
research projects.  Those kids in the Westinghouse competition did 
not learn to do PCR in the high school bio lab.)  Usenet is often 
used as a substitute for such mentoring programs by some teachers. 

In this particular case, the problem of massing a car had been 
discussed extensively for several weeks in sci.physics a month 
or so ago, so most of the suggestions were a reprise/summary of 
those threads.  Further, anything posted here is, in principle,  
available to any of the competitors. 

Besides, if the contest designers are any good at all, our suggestions 
will be of little help if a contestant does not go out and do the 
hard work of characterizing a wide variety of tires with very different 
design characteristics. 

-- 
 James A. Carr   <jac@scri.fsu.edu>     |  Tallahassee, where the crime rate 
    http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac        |  is almost twice that in New York 
 Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst.  |  City.  Reported crimes, that is.  
 Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306    |  A subtle statistical detail.