First of all, sorry for taking so long to post in this thread. I've been busy with work and a variety of other things. (Plus, I had to block off some time to prepare for this post, including doing the buzzer tests detailed below, and I didn't have the time to do that for a while).
(Also, all links below are to files in my Dropbox.)
Anyway here's my response:
Cody wrote:
WUSTL:...you...brought a buzzer missing a power cord!
I definitely deserve my share of the blame for this, since I'm the one with physical custody of our buzzers. I am also quite sorry that one of our sets was missing a power adapter when we brought it to ACF Nationals. Along those lines, I bought a new adapter using my own money the day I saw your post. As documentation of this, a copy of the order confirmation Anderson sent me the next day is
here).
I did this so we could live up to our buzzer obligations at CO and any other summer tournaments we host/attend. As far as I'm concerned, bringing fully working buzzers to tournaments is an important part of one's obligations to the quiz bowl community. I am sorry we did not live up to that obligation.
That said:
Cody wrote:
...just the previous weekend, NAQT had labeled one of [your buzzers] as missing a power cord.
Neither of the NAQT labels on our buzzer sets says anything about a missing power cord. After your post, I found the set missing an adapter. Neither that set nor the other has any notes on its label.
You can see that here (we still haven't taken the labels off):
Label on buzzer set that we brought to ACF Nationals with a power adapter: (
Front,
Back)
Label on buzzer set that we brought to ACF Nationals without a power adapter: (
Front,
Back)
Beyond that:
Cody wrote:
And then the fact that it was missing a power cord was posted about on the boards!
Where? I read every ICT related post after the tournament. I suspect I'm not the only one on our team who did this. None of us saw any reference to our buzzers missing a power adapter. After your post, I went back to look at every ICT related post to search for references to buzzers (as well as "WUSTL" and "WashU"). The only post I found was
this one.
I don't think this post refers to our buzzers, since as you can see above, none of NAQT's labels said anything about a missing adapter in either of our sets. That said, the post is a little ambiguous since it refers to the "case" being marked with "Missing a cord." Thus, it could refer to a mark about a missing power adapter on the actual surface of one of our cases.
Along those lines,
here is a ZIP file with photos of every side of both of our buzzer cases. As you can see, there is no such marking.
Beyond that, I also looked at the AVOGADRO'S NUMBER threads, since we provided both our buzzer sets for that tournament. As far as I could tell, none of them mentioned our buzzers. I know at least one of our buzzer sets worked at that tournament (since I played a round using it). Does anyone remember the other missing a power adapter?
Finally:
Cody wrote:
...neither of your buzzer sets [worked]...
It is true that one of our buzzer sets was missing a power adapter when we brought it to ACF Nationals. However, both of our buzzer sets work. I tested both sets Sunday night after seeing your posts. I also just tested them again in more detail. As proof that they work, videos of me testing both of our buzzer sets can be found here:
Buzzer set that we brought to ACF Nationals with a power adapter: (
here)
Buzzer set that we brought to ACF Nationals without a power adapter: (
here)
In the interest of full disclosure, I did discover today that the set of buzzers we brought to ACF Nationals with an adapter has 1 plunger (of 9) which sometimes doesn't work (it wouldn't buzz on the first try maybe 1 in 5 times when I tested it).
However, the other set (which we brought missing the adapter) had no problems whatsoever. Thus, if you did run into that problem with the former set at ACF Nationals, I don't know why you didn't switch the adapter to the latter to get a perfectly working set. Even if you didn't do that, the former set is still perfectly adequate.
Conclusion
Both of our buzzer sets work. One of them was missing a power adapter when we brought it to ACF Nationals, for which I apologize. However, NAQT did not label either set with this issue. I also can't find any forum threads that could have alerted us to this problem. Thus, I don't understand the basis for most of your post.
Theorizing
My theory is that whoever used our buzzers at AVOGADRO'S NUMBER didn't replace the power adapter. Obviously, I have no proof of this. However, since NAQT didn't label our buzzers with any issues, I believe they worked at ICT. The only time our buzzers were used between ICT and ACF Nationals was at AVOGADRO'S NUMBER (since we didn't use them at practice that week). Thus, our power adapter probably went missing then.
(As a personal note, if my theory is correct, I'm pretty sympathetic to the staffer who left our adapter. I remember how incredibly tired I was that evening and I'm sure they felt the same way, especially if they'd just moderated the entirety of that tournament. Even if we'd discovered that we were missing an adapter right after AVOGADRO'S NUMBER, I don't think it would have been necessary, in that context, to demand reimbursement/replacement. Of course, that's just my personal opinion.)