In March, the Society Rapier Marshal announced the formation of a committee to review and recommend changes to the entirety of the SCA Rapier Rules. I was selected as one of the members of that team and have been focusing on generating data to allow us to scientifically select armor standards that correspond to safe usage of our current weapons.
The 2014 Pennsic results were very helpful as a starting point, but there was a desire to capture a wider and more diverse sampling and to ask slightly different questions than were asked the first time around. So, I am pleased to announce that the Mark V machine is going on a "World Tour".
2016 World Tour Sites
- SCA 50th Year Celebration - June 2016 - Master Wistric Oftun
- West-An Tir War - July 2016 - Master Luciano Foscari
- Pennsic 45 - August 2016 - Master Llwyd Aldrydd
I want to thank the people who have volunteered to run the testing at these events! And I'd like to encourage as many people as possible to go out and throw blows at the machine to generate data.
Information for Volunteer Scientists
Here is a video describing how to run tests that is intended for my volunteer testers:
A PDF of the data collection form is here
If you talk to someone who is interested in either learning more about the machine, or seeing the finished results, please give them a business card for this web page. I will mail a supply of cards to each volunteer who is hosting a session, but if you want more here is a PDF of the cards.