Thermodynamics Build Ideas

[athanzxyt]

Anyone have any good designs or materials that make your box better than everyone else? My box is crafted from 30 hours of research and yet our box can only barely out-preform a box built in 2 hours. Does anyone have any suggestions?

[wec01]

I would suggest experimenting a bit with different materials and designs. While research is helpful, sometimes it's easier to just build some quick boxes and see what happens.

[LIPX3]

I don't understand why people are so focused on the box, I made mine in about half an hour with some old insulation, a table saw, and glue, and it performed well every time it was used.

[UTF-8 U+6211 U+662F]

I don't understand why people are so focused on the box, I made mine in about half an hour with some old insulation, a table saw, and glue, and it performed well every time it was used.

I had a similar experience. I don't know how much the rules have changed, but last year, what really seemed to matter was the predictions and getting a competitive score on the test portion. My box itself was kind of just haphazardly stuck together.

[wec01]

I don't understand why people are so focused on the box, I made mine in about half an hour with some old insulation, a table saw, and glue, and it performed well every time it was used.

I had a similar experience. I don't know how much the rules have changed, but last year, what really seemed to matter was the predictions and getting a competitive score on the test portion. My box itself was kind of just haphazardly stuck together.

This year, even though the heat score is weighted the same, it's calculated by k-value so I think it's easier to lose points, although I haven't actually checked the math so correct me if I'm wrong.

[CookiePie1]

I don't understand why people are so focused on the box, I made mine in about half an hour with some old insulation, a table saw, and glue, and it performed well every time it was used.

I had a similar experience. I don't know how much the rules have changed, but last year, what really seemed to matter was the predictions and getting a competitive score on the test portion. My box itself was kind of just haphazardly stuck together.

This year, even though the heat score is weighted the same, it's calculated by k-value so I think it's easier to lose points, although I haven't actually checked the math so correct me if I'm wrong.

I think the heat score is pretty trivial as long as your device isn't really terrible. Anything will be fine as long as it insulates to some degree and you can make good predictions.

[LIPX3]

I had a similar experience. I don't know how much the rules have changed, but last year, what really seemed to matter was the predictions and getting a competitive score on the test portion. My box itself was kind of just haphazardly stuck together.

This year, even though the heat score is weighted the same, it's calculated by k-value so I think it's easier to lose points, although I haven't actually checked the math so correct me if I'm wrong.

I think the heat score is pretty trivial as long as your device isn't really terrible. Anything will be fine as long as it insulates to some degree and you can make good predictions.

That's what I experienced as well, and the prediction doesn't matter that much, as long as you're within two degrees. Even if you're that far off, you still get 20 out of 25 points in that category.