Hand Load or Auto Load?

[JonB]

A number of reasons auto loading is better, none that I can think of where hand loading is better

Being the only one who said hand, I feel some need to defend it. At least for me personally, I always feel much more in control when I load by hand. Also, I load by hand much more often and that experience seems to help for me at least

What do you feel you have more control of?

[dholdgreve]

A number of reasons auto loading is better, none that I can think of where hand loading is better

We ran this event at a recent invitational, and gave each team the option of hand loading or auto loading. It was a bit of a pain to switch back and forth, but we aim to please. Of the 32 teams that tested, 6 chose to hand load with a scoop. 2 of these chose this option simply because it was the first option offered... they truly had no idea which was better, 2 were totally misguided, thinking that by hand loading, they can control where the sand is placed in the bucket and therefore keep the bucket from tilting, thus pulling harder on one side of the chain than the other (I guess), and 2 I assume were hand loading either as directed by their coach or as a practice for an upcoming regional in which everyone hand loads. This is the only valid reason I can think of for hand loading, and I can think of several for not hand loading... Just to name a few:
Silicosis of the lungs from the sand dust blowing up in your face
Accidentally bumping the bucket as move back and forth over the rim of the bucket, ending it all prematurely
Running out of time. It takes 1:30 to auto load the entire 15 KG... I've seen 2 teams time out in the last 2 weeks hand loading
If the tower were to break prior to full load, I believe you are more likely to have more sand removed by the E/C in a hand loading scenario than in an auto loading scenario, In an auto loader, it is deceiving how much sand is actually going into the bucket every second, so an E/C is not likely to take out as much as was actually discharged after the break.
If every time hand loaded and used the entire 8 minutes, only 6 teams per hour per load station could be tested. For a 6 period tournament, this effectively limits the number of teams to 36 without adding a second station
I believe that every tower has both a maximum load and a maximum time carrying that load. Everyone focuses on carrying that perfect 14.99 KG load, but not nearly as many focus on the tower only being able to carry a load for a certain amount of time... Loading fast and smooth maximizes both.

Just my 2 cents

[MattH2018]

A number of reasons auto loading is better, none that I can think of where hand loading is better

Being the only one who said hand, I feel some need to defend it. At least for me personally, I always feel much more in control when I load by hand. Also, I load by hand much more often and that experience seems to help for me at least

What do you feel you have more control of?

The speed with which I pour. I know for a fact that I can load it all in 6 mins; I've done it in competition and in practice multiple times. I also feel like I can better judge how much sand I have left

[Balsa Man]

Being the only one who said hand, I feel some need to defend it. At least for me personally, I always feel much more in control when I load by hand. Also, I load by hand much more often and that experience seems to help for me at least

What do you feel you have more control of?

The speed with which I pour. I know for a fact that I can load it all in 6 mins; I've done it in competition and in practice multiple times. I also feel like I can better judge how much sand I have left

Being as ....proficient as you have become with hand loading it certainly an advantage if you have to hand load at a given competition, and I totally understand your preference, given your proficiency.
However, I totally agree with the perspective and all points dholdgreve presents. Especially with a....competitive tower (pushing the limits, really light, designed to just barely/maybe carry max load), the time its under near max load becomes a really important factor; you really want to minimize that near max load time to maximize score. Seconds can make a BIG difference. You also want a steady flow of sand, instead of a series of 'bumps.' If a tower's... over-engineered, not really competitive, like capable of carrying...17, 18...19Kg, it'll probably happily carry 15kg for... minutes...maybe even hours(?) At our regionals last weekend, we had two loaders. One would do full loading in 35-45 seconds (depending on how quickly you got it up to wide open); the other took 80-85 seconds. All but one of the top scoring teams used the faster one, because they understood the time under load situation.

So, your proficiency with hand loading is noted and absolutely respected, but I absolutely believe if your tower's competitive, you will get a better score autoloading.

[dholdgreve]

Hmmm,
May have cause to rethink... While the vast majority of Invitationals we have attended this year have chosen to either go strictly with auto loaders, or at the very least a choice between auto-loader and hand loading, both Regionals (Piqua, Ohio), and State (Ohio) have chosen to stay with the hand loading option. I'm not sure why. Maybe it is to add an additional risk factor of bumping the bucket and causing catastrophic early failure on the lighter towers, based on the developed skills of the loader... Maybe it is because there is no room to store the loaders in the off-season. Maybe it is a budget issue, where they cannot justify the cost of an auto loader for one competition a year. Maybe it is a bubble scenario, where they E/Cs are not aware of the overwhelming use and preference of auto-loaders by the participants throughout the season. In any case, this may give an additional logic path to why one might wish to hand load through the season. I have seen (2) different hand loadings where they have run out of time and been forced to stop loading. Had they practiced this through the season, they may have known better how much time remains. Knowing and understanding how the cup size can affect your hand load times may be another issue... This would only come with experience of hand loading with various size scoops and cups. So, although I'm not buying the "better feel for how much sand is left" theory, I may still support those that wish to hand load until changes occur at the higher levels of competitions.

FINAL NOTE: Realizing that auto loading is much faster than hand loading, and as a result, the auto loader scores tend to be considerably higher, I think it is only fair that E/Cs announce ahead of time whether they will be hand loading or auto loading, so the kids can adjust their build accordingly. If the competition calls for hand loading, I'd think that a team may wish to build a little heavier than if autoloaded, to guard against increase hang time, the dynamic "bumps" inherent with hand loading, and the possible bucket bump. Just a thought.

If anyone would like to add how their State deals with this, we would love to know... I'll Start:

OHIO - Hand Load

[MattH2018]

If anyone would like to add how their State deals with this, we would love to know... I'll Start:

OHIO - Hand Load

New York was going to be autoload, but they only had one hopper and they wanted to run 2 set ups at once, so we hand loaded

[Balsa Man]

Colorado - autoload

[Dohnnovan]

Northern California - Autoload

[Balsa Man]

Does anyone know what they plan to do at Nationals??
One would hope/presume autoload for both divisions....(there was a year w/ booms where B had to hand load while C autoloaded)....

[Juanyjose]

Missouri did auto load, and I think that might be why everyone did so bad. Pretty much everyone's tower underperformed: Pembroke got 200 points less than what I expected, Wydown got 1/2 as much (800 points less, although that might have multiple causes) and Ladue got less than 800, when they got ~1100 at regionals. Most of the towers had scores of less than 1500, which is pretty bad even for a fairly uncompetitive state.

I don't think it was because of the fact it was auto load, but because all the sand fell to the front of the bucket, where it couldn't really be effectively stabilized. Would that affect the tower, or was it just a coincidence. Any thoughts?