It hasn't changed a bit
Well, the Kansas City regional is now over. All I can say is, whether you're a mentor or a student, it's still busy as hell.
Click to see details and pictures of my weekend.
My whole journey started at 6:30 am when I hit the road to Kansas City Friday morning. The drive is so boring that I took a photo every ten miles and turned it into a gif. Click below if you dare, it's 4 megs.
http://maxzillian.com/robotics/2009/drive.gif
I managed to arrive before the first qualifying match of the day, but after the opening ceremonies (no loss there). The students were busy reprogramming the robot as it turns out that they didn't have to use a certain routine in the programming and this opened up what they could do with the robot.
After dealing with that we returned to the pits to get ready for the first match. I have to say that I like Kansas City because the pits aren't nearly as crowded as St. Louis was. Still a royal bitch to get around quickly, however.
The pits as seen from high.
And the playing field.
Other than that, Friday was busy, but straight forward. They played roughly 5 matches and were sitting in 15th place out of 61 teams.
Come Saturday morning, we had a surprise. Snow! Not a lot, but enough that I was only doing 35 mph on the freeway since it was 6 am and traffic nor the plow trucks had cleared the road yet. Slush is a bitch to drive in.
Once we finally made it to the arena, we had free pancakes! Complete with techno music that made me very happy I didn't go to the brewery the night before.
One of the few times I got to watch a match.
Three matches later, the team had climbed to 5th place. Being one of the top 8 teams, they got to choose two alliance partners (the game is 3 on 3) and went to the quarter finals!
During a pre-final inspection we noticed a roller had broken on the robot. With one hour to make the repairs before finals, it was a flurry, but they pulled it off.
After dealing with several restarted due to the control system for the playing field failing, they made it to the semi-finals before being eliminated, but they put up a heck of a fight!
All in all, they placed within the top 8% in qualifying and placed 3rd or 4th overall depending on how you look at the semi-finals. They didn't go away empty handed though as the animation team won an award for their work and the team won an award for having a high quality robot. :>
After the closing ceremony, it was a monotonous 3 hour drive back home. I walked in the door at 10:30... better than I had planned, to be honest.
Click to see details and pictures of my weekend.
My whole journey started at 6:30 am when I hit the road to Kansas City Friday morning. The drive is so boring that I took a photo every ten miles and turned it into a gif. Click below if you dare, it's 4 megs.
http://maxzillian.com/robotics/2009/drive.gif
I managed to arrive before the first qualifying match of the day, but after the opening ceremonies (no loss there). The students were busy reprogramming the robot as it turns out that they didn't have to use a certain routine in the programming and this opened up what they could do with the robot.
After dealing with that we returned to the pits to get ready for the first match. I have to say that I like Kansas City because the pits aren't nearly as crowded as St. Louis was. Still a royal bitch to get around quickly, however.
The pits as seen from high.
And the playing field.
Other than that, Friday was busy, but straight forward. They played roughly 5 matches and were sitting in 15th place out of 61 teams.
Come Saturday morning, we had a surprise. Snow! Not a lot, but enough that I was only doing 35 mph on the freeway since it was 6 am and traffic nor the plow trucks had cleared the road yet. Slush is a bitch to drive in.
Once we finally made it to the arena, we had free pancakes! Complete with techno music that made me very happy I didn't go to the brewery the night before.
One of the few times I got to watch a match.
Three matches later, the team had climbed to 5th place. Being one of the top 8 teams, they got to choose two alliance partners (the game is 3 on 3) and went to the quarter finals!
During a pre-final inspection we noticed a roller had broken on the robot. With one hour to make the repairs before finals, it was a flurry, but they pulled it off.
After dealing with several restarted due to the control system for the playing field failing, they made it to the semi-finals before being eliminated, but they put up a heck of a fight!
All in all, they placed within the top 8% in qualifying and placed 3rd or 4th overall depending on how you look at the semi-finals. They didn't go away empty handed though as the animation team won an award for their work and the team won an award for having a high quality robot. :>
After the closing ceremony, it was a monotonous 3 hour drive back home. I walked in the door at 10:30... better than I had planned, to be honest.