Tuesday, April 17, 2012

And the results are...

The numbers have turned up from the competitions and since I said I would, here they are.

First up, the 2 vans (all grades out of 20)

30' 1889 guards van.
Skill 15.5
Complexity 12.75
Conformity/fidelity 12.5
Finish 13
Total 53.75 (67.19%)

47' guards van.
Skill 15
Complexity 13.25
Conformity/fidelity 13
Finish 12.5
Total 53.75 (67.19%)

These 2 entries were supplied with no supporting information. Also both have a wire coupler on one end and someminor flaws in assembly.

Uga
Skill 14.5
Complexity 12
Conformity/fidelity 13.5
Finish 12
Total 52 (65%)

This model was supplied with a journal with the plan and a photo I worked from. might have hurt me a bit

Finally, the J sheep wagon
Skill 16.5
Complexity 14.5
Conformity/fidelity 17.5
Finish 15.75
Total 64.25 (80.31%)

Again, this was supplied with the relevant journal article.

So, what does this tell us all? I think that the lack of historical information hurt me a bit. The finish I'm not too sure about, weathering is very subjective. I could have had a crack at decals for the numbers, but life is a bit short.

I'd be interested to see how Kiwibonds Dx would score in the cutthroat locos section.

9 comments:

Am_Fet said...

Okay, so being the designer of 2 of the entries here I suppose I have a vested interest, plus one of the judges is a good friend, but....

I would have thought the J might have scored higher in the complexity stakes, if only for the difficulty of assembly? Sure, it may have a part count under 10 (ish), but trying to hold something smaller than your average USB stick with one hand while worrying in the 2 floors with the other before your optivisor fogs up....

It shows I think that the majority of the jury is still undecided about CAD/CAM and Nz120 in general.

Druff or Cabbage might be able to answer this (or the peanut gallery), where there any other CAD/CAM models (and to that I mean etched or RP) in the competition, and how did they do?

Still, I suppose we shouldnt quibble, a gold is a gold.

(Helmet on and crouching behind the parapet!)

Motorised Dandruff said...

I think in retrospect I should ahve arranged to have the base bits that it was assembled from. Having to describe it as a 'kit' (there was no option for scratch aid) is a bit far i think.

More organisation would be the key.

Kiwibonds said...

So if you had done the cad youself and assembled it, it wouldn't be a kit would it? I don't consider my dx to be a kit. I doubt people who make their own wagons out of bits they cast would say they made kit.

You just had some help cutting out the pieces that's all. Just like using plastruct shapes today makes our 1990s handcut models look a little squiffy from up close.

I would have thought the J scores might have been higher in some of the categories given the fiddliness of NZ120 s well. Perhaps we need to impose a 2 foot force field within which the judges may not enter?

Motorised Dandruff said...

I would argue that if you had done all the CAD work yoruself and got everything manufactured then it should still be considered scratchbuilding. Lets face it, a computer is just another tool, just a different one. However it still needs a high level of skill to get the best out of it.

As to numbers of other models based on CAD I could not guess really.

Anonymous said...

I'm with MD and I'm pretty sure that the rules already exist to cover it as Mr Knight successfully argued that, having personally mastered castings and then used them in an entry then it wasn't a kit. Roy Link also was very clear on that in the Model Railway Journal of all esteemed publications.

Kev

Amateur Fettler said...

Okay, so say for arguments sake that I entered the J5 as it stands with Herr Druffs excellent work....I can only think marks would be gained in the "Skill" section, of which there are only another 3.5 marks to be gained? And as I didnt design the chassis, then that might reduce it to only be an extra mark or so. Complexity and fidelity are still the same, maybe marks could be gained in finishing, but as he has alluded to, short of doing insanely small decals there isnt much else to be gained.

Cabbage said...

With the J the 2 foot force field only served to make the details unobservable
From watching the judges inside the fortress they were pretty much shit scared of breaking the thing and were afraid to get that closer look
Maybe provide a BIG magnifying sheet so they can break the 2 foot force field and see how complex it actually is
And definitely provide the starting point even if it just a photo with a list of, I bought these bits separately from different manufactures (without any instructions) to make it out of

Motorised Dandruff said...

Maybe I should have written on the sheet its perfectly safe to handle. better yet would have been a physical demonstartion.
Like all my models its actually built to run on a layout, not sit in a glass case, and is much tough than it looks thanks to the strength of the materials used.

Anonymous said...

I think there is also a problem with the sheets people have to fill out for their competition entries. Two sheets get filled out, but the judges only see one - great if the detail of what was required to build the entry happens to be on the other sheet. I've known an entry with a crap finish and extreme complexity of construction get almost identical scores for finish and complexity.