Timing Consistency
Repeat Your Performance
The Challenge: Launch 3 times - get your two closest flight times as close together as possible!
⚠ Minimum Flight Time: 6 Seconds ⚠
Any flight under 6 seconds doesn't count. You must launch high enough!
Any flight under 6 seconds doesn't count. You must launch high enough!
Setup
- Players choose their OWN angle and pressure for each launch
- Settings can be changed between launches (that's the challenge!)
- One person operates the stopwatch for all players
- Record all three times for each player
How to Play
- Each player gets 3 launches
- Time each flight (launch to landing)
- Any flight under 6 seconds = INVALID (doesn't count)
- After all 3 launches, find your two closest times
- Calculate the difference between those two times
- Smallest difference wins!
Example:
Player A: 7.2s, 8.1s, 7.4s → Closest pair: 7.2 & 7.4 → Difference: 0.2s
Player B: 9.0s, 6.5s, 8.8s → Closest pair: 9.0 & 8.8 → Difference: 0.2s
Player C: 7.0s, 5.8s*, 7.3s → *Invalid! Only 7.0 & 7.3 count → Difference: 0.3s
Result: Players A and B tie! (Use total of all valid times as tiebreaker)
Scoring Variants
- Pure Consistency: Smallest difference between two closest times wins
- Triple Match: Bonus if ALL THREE times are within 1 second of each other
- High & Consistent: Multiply consistency score by average flight time
Strategy
- Higher angles = longer flights but more affected by wind
- Consistent technique matters more than maximum power
- Use a test launch to calibrate, then try to repeat it exactly
- Watch for wind changes between launches
Science Connection: Real rocket engineers need repeatability! A rocket that performs differently each time is unreliable. Consistency is as important as performance.