In the first Lorraine Agricultural and Forestry Machinery Competition, the judges with certain authority in the field of federal industrial machinery finally selected the strongest and unlucky 32 teams from more than 300 participating teams through objective, fair and independent scoring as much as possible. As expected, the teams sent directly or indirectly by the old industrial groups such as Grumman, Starry Sky and Dothan have achieved good rankings, but they are not enough to enter the first series - for this preliminary/semi-final competition mode, the strong and scheming participants usually have reservations in the preliminary stage, and will not easily come up with the best design. Wait to see the situation of the preliminary round, and then consider the strategy of the semi-finals, and strive to maximize the benefits.

At the top of the preliminary round were four teams, namely Taigu Vehicle Factory, Chick Ground Factory, Lawrence Vehicle Factory and Lorraine Agriculture and Forestry Machinery, with the first two entries being single-entry entries and the last two entries being multi-entry entries. In the end, both Lawrence and Lorraine Agriculture and Forestry Machinery passed the preliminary round with two works. Overall, the entries of these four teams were significantly higher than the others. If it was just a one-round tournament, the champion might have been born from these four teams, but the technical ceiling of the tournament would have ended there. The two-stage setting of the preliminary and semi-finals not only increases the intensity of the competition, but also raises the technical ceiling.

Weiss asked Lorraine Agriculture and Forestry Machinery Factory to participate in the competition, and its primary goal was not to win a huge prize money in the event, but to improve technology, talents, and ideas in an all-round way, but this does not mean that the participating teams of Lorraine Agriculture and Forestry Machinery Factory did not aim to compete for the championship. The rewards are equally enticing for the engineers of the participating teams and for all the employees of the machine shop who stand behind them to provide support. Before the competition, Weiss promised them that as long as they won the award, all the prize money would be given to the participants and the factory employees, and the factory would not keep any part of it on the grounds of making up for the consumption of equipment and materials. In this way, in addition to those who form their own teams to participate, the prize distribution plan of Lorraine Agriculture and Forestry Machinery Factory is the most able to mobilize the enthusiasm of the participants.

Strength is strength, and strength must be achieved. After the preliminary competition, the engineers of the Lorraine Agricultural and Forestry Machinery Factory also realized that their work was far from perfect. In terms of characteristics, they have their own strengths and weaknesses with strong players such as Taigu, Loftus-Cheek and Lawrence, and whoever can improve more between the two stages will have a better chance of winning the award. Therefore, the engineers spontaneously worked overtime to study the plan to improve the performance, and the workers also actively participated in it, making and testing according to the engineers' plan.

Diligence can make up for clumsiness, but there are many things, and diligence is not a substitute for wisdom. Many of the plans considered by the engineers did not work out, and Weiss, as the de facto leader of the Lorraine Machinery Factory, took a lot of time to discuss with the engineers, and an interesting thing happened - an engineer named Zuosen-Lignot proposed himself to the Lorraine Machinery Factory, saying that he was very optimistic about the entry of the Lorraine Agricultural and Forestry Machinery Factory and was confident that he would help them further improve the design. His request is also very simple, if the entry of the Lorraine Agriculture and Forestry Machinery Manufacturing Factory finally wins a certain award, either he will be given a share of the award, or he will be hired as a senior engineer and provided with a reasonable salary.

Before this, Weiss recruited engineers through various channels and methods, although it has not yet reached the level of hard to find, at this time someone actually sent to the door, is it not that Lorraine Agriculture and Forestry Machinery Factory has made a name for itself in this competition, and has the capital to attract outstanding talents? Despite his good performance in the preliminary round, most people remained calm and sane, and were therefore skeptical of the young engineer's origins, believing that he might be a spy sent by a rival, and some even thought that he might be an intelligence agent sent by the Norman Empire to gather technical information or sabotage.

Weiss, of course, would not make arbitrary conclusions, and he had the young engineer brought to him. After some scrutiny, I had an in-depth conversation with him, and found that this is really an excellent engineer with a good chest. This person did not come from a professional background, but grew up in a mechanical workshop, started working as a helper at the age of 10, and was admitted to the local mechanical technical school at the age of 16, spent three years to complete his studies, and then stayed in school as an assistant to the teacher for a period of time. Later, on the recommendation of his teacher, he went to the Ulster University of Technology to continue his studies in mechanics, but not orthodox, but while working in the factory attached to the school, he also audited the mechanical course.

After two years of auditing at the highest university in the field of federal machinery, Zuo Sen benefited a lot, and then he worked in the machinery factory under the Star Group because he was dissatisfied with this distribution system, and he wrote several letters to the high-level, either in the sea or was severely criticized by his supervisor. Eventually, he ran away in a negative mood. Because he learned about this interesting competition, he wanted to come and see it for a long time, so he found a friend who formed a team to participate in the competition, and provided voluntary labor and reimbursement for the travel expenses and accommodation expenses of the Lorraine people. In the preliminary stage, the various displays of the participating teams opened his eyes, and the team he "attached" to was too weak and unlucky, so he was eliminated in the preliminary stage, and the partners who formed the team simply disbanded on the spot. Engineers who have excelled on the field or who have some success are being chased here, and he is just a small and obscure character. With the idea of continuing the dream of machinery, he chose to recommend himself, and when Weiss asked him why he wanted to choose the Lorraine Agriculture and Forestry Machinery Factory, he said that only the Lorraine factories are the most concise and clear in terms of management and equity inheritance, unlike those industrial giants who manage layer by layer, which will eventually deprive people of their nature in dreaming and creating.

After a rather pleasant conversation, Weiss agreed that he would temporarily join the No. 1 team of the Lorraine Agricultural and Forestry Machinery Factory, helping the engineers to come up with ideas, modify the machines, and improve the running performance of the participating machines as much as possible by improving the transmission and suspension systems. During this month's preparation period, the two aero engines they ordered from the Star Group were also successfully put in place, and this kind of aero engines had few obvious disadvantages except for being expensive. Weiss also left room for improvement early on for the new power, and after installing the aero engine, their full-tracked forestry transporter immediately improved in terms of power, and the improved transmission and suspension system also allowed them to show a significant improvement over the preliminary results in internal tests, which is far from the efficiency ratio of the new engine.

After joining the team of Lorraine Agriculture and Forestry Machinery Factory, Zuo Sen adhered to the newcomer code of "doing more things and talking less", and followed everyone to get up early and be greedy and conscientious. After getting acquainted with everyone, he began to make a low-key "I have an idea" voice in the technical discussion forum, not to express his ideas out of whimsy, but to have real constructive suggestions, which helped the team solve two hidden dangers that may become Achilles' heels, and also made certain improvements in the operation of the participating vehicles. Judging from the feedback from the engineers, this person has a lot of ideas about the suspension system, if he can greatly modify the chassis of the logging transport vehicle according to his design plan, the stability of the march and the cross-country ability will be greatly improved, but it is a pity that the time is too late, and it is only to cope with such a competition, and it will not be able to raise the mechanical chassis to the standard of actual combat - for the characteristics of this newcomer, Weiss sees it in his eyes, I also know that his mechanical design ability is more imaginative and logical than the existing engineers of the Lorraine Agricultural and Forestry Machinery Factory, and as long as he does not go astray, it is entirely possible to become a top mechanical engineer.

A month has passed, and the long-awaited rematch has finally arrived, and the venue of the competition is placed in the vast plains east of Mason, which is a traditional pasture, with a large area of grass, and rolling hills to the north, rivers and mountains to the south, and 32 teams that have passed the preliminary round will be oriented to the four links of weight test, rapid test, off-road course and mountain road test. According to a certain scoring coefficient to obtain the final score, and the test of each item can be divided into several components, for example, the load test is not only to load the goods in place, just take two steps, but also need to carry a certain load to complete the road trip, dirt road trip and hillside trip. Points are deducted for each breakdown during these trips, and failure to complete one of the sections will result in the loss of base points for the entire event. For example, the off-road test is divided into four sub-events: no-load off-road, weight-bearing off-road, wading off-road and mountain off-road. This relatively complex and objective scoring system is based on repeated weighing, calculation and consultation by experts and the staff of the organizer on the basis of the preliminary competition, which has a strong guiding role. In addition, in order to fit the theme of the agricultural and forestry machinery competition, each group of participating teams needs to complete relatively simple logging and farming content, but this basically has little to do with the vehicle chassis, and only needs to carry additional auxiliary tools to basically complete.

In terms of schedule, the semi-finals are divided into four days, and each day is free after the schedule for the participating teams to overhaul and improve their equipment. Of course, the interval between the days can also be used to fix the problems they found during the competition, or to use new ideas to improve. For each project, they have one chance to apply for a retest, and the higher of the two tests will be the final grade. This arrangement not only increases fault tolerance, but also allows all parties to brainstorm and maximize the efficiency of these mechanical designs.

As expected, Lawrence Vehicle Factory, which represented Grumman Group, and Kaiser Machinery Factory, which represented Star Group, both came up with awesome improvements in the semi-finals - presented in the semi-finals in the most suitable way for the scoring rules, which is the embodiment of their true strength. Although the entries of the most eye-catching dark horses in the preliminary round, Taigu Vehicle Factory and Chick Machinery Factory, also improved in the semi-final stage, they seemed to have been a little rushed, so that there were too many breakdowns in some events. This instability not only affects their results, but also obviously affects the mentality of the participants. The more impatient they are, the more they don't work the way they intended.

During the recuperation period between the race days, Weiss did not go out in person, but looked at the engineers and technicians of the Lorraine Agricultural and Forestry Machinery Factory from the perspective of a bystander, and also went to the temporary workshop of the two dark horse teams, Taigu and Cheek, as the organizers, and deployed some equipment and manpower to help them in a free way when they encountered difficulties. For the help of the governor of Lorraine, they are not as repulsive and wary as other participating teams, and in the process of this communication, Weiss feels that the entries of Taigu vehicles are more in line with the development trend of the full track vehicle chassis, and although Loftus-Cheek has excellent data on many performance parameters at this stage, there is a bottleneck in the development of half-track vehicles after all. In the long run, it is not a rational choice, so Weiss's attitude towards the participants of the two teams is different: he encourages the engineers of Taigu to work hard in the direction of competing for the award, and he shows personal friendliness and generosity to the engineers of Loftus-Cheek, hoping that the team will cooperate more closely with the industrialists of Lorraine in the future.