I'm going to have to side with the physicists who have been working on human-powered for nearly a decade and say this is doomed to failure.

The amount of data that they have seemingly overlooked is enormous. It's like someone trying to reinvent the wheel and starting out with a square. The "discoveries" they've made could have been learned through a simple Google search and saved them money to be used on a more efficient design.

So what would the effect of coaxial counter balance rotors be? I was waiting to see that on the vid. looks pretty cool tho.

Snicker, polite snort SMH

Well, of course this design runs contrary to currently accepted aerodynamic principals! Very few 'innovative' designs don't.
Rob, you answered your own question. The co-axial driven rotor eliminate the need for a tail rotor by counteracting the inherent torque rotation of the entire vehicle. Dennis, you are assuming that this design team hasn't 'Googled' the concept. The nature of the competition limits the scope of information a team will admit to have in its possession.

When Bell Helicopter modified the 212 model into the 412 the important change was that the replaced the two bladed main rotor with a four bladed main rotor, this gives about a 20 knot speed advantage to the 412. However the four bladed rotor's diameter is only two feet less than the two bladed rotor on the 212. Obviously most of the lift is generated at the blade tips. Therefor it appears to me that the rotor should be designed to minimize drag and weight near the center and maximize lift at the outer few feet of rotor blade.

A conceptual improvement is possible. The tip vortices spiral inward towards the shaft, to some extent. Those from the top rotor will therefore interfere with the flow at the tips of the bottom rotor thus increasing the drag and decreasing the lift. To prevent this reduce the diameter of the bottom rotor and, to keep the same torque at the same tip speed, increase the number of blades in the bottom rotor to three of four.

@Noel Frothingham- Silly me, of course you're right. There're just pretending to not know about basic concepts of aerodynamics to throw the other competitors off! When no one expects it they'll show up with the real design and win the contest! I should have known they couldn't be that uninformed.

This reminds me of those crazy days when men dreamed of flying through the air, over 100 years ago.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMhdksPFhCM
At $19,700 short of their goal with seven days to go, I think it's a pretty safe bet they won't get the money. About as safe a bet that they'll never get off the ground.

Noel, what I meant was 2 single blades counter balanced running co axial .