Robotics Trip to Atlanta - Day 3

(This one took a while to get out. Why? Because spending 5 days with 40 teenagers is exhausting!)

One of the chaperones took one look at me this morning and said, "You look tired!" It's been a long week. I'm glad we're going home tomorrow.

We had our last two qualification matches today and lost both, leaving us 3-4, ranked 54th out of 86 teams. Boo. It sounds like an excuse, but... we didn't get much help from our alliance partners (see this thread on Chief Delphi for a discussion of the sorting algorithm used to determine match-ups during qualification matches) and were double-teamed constantly. I guess it's a compliment to our team and robot that we would draw so much coverage. I was surprised by how high some teams were ranked; luck in alliance partners during the qualification matches is a real factor.

To determine the FIRST champion, the 300+ teams at the Championship were divided into four divisions (Newton, Galileo, Curie, and Archimedes). Each team plays seven qualification matches, after which the top eight teams select two alliance partners to join them in the division tournament. The tournament matches are played best out of three. (Each match-up plays at least 2 times.) The division tournament determines a division champion, who goes on to compete against the other division champions to determine the FIRST Champion.

After our last qualification match, part of the team volunteered to help take down practice fields in the pits. (I went with them because a free T-shirt was offered.) Alliance selections took place while we were down there. We may have been ranked 54th, but we were the 5th team selected! It was exciting to see our team number pop up on the monitor; we let out a cheer when we saw it. Our alliance was led by Team 1595 (St. Georges School from Spokane, WA) and included us and Team 93 (Appleton Area School District from Appleton, WI). 93's robot was a ramp bot; it worked reasonably well and could score ringers too, albeit slowly. 93's ringer skills actually came in handy a number of times when 1595's robot and ours were encountering some harsh defense. Team 1595's robot, was a ringer bot, like ours, but had a crazy arm. It looked kind of like the number 4 (with two joints and a claw).

Our first match-up was with the 4th seeded alliance. In what would be indicative of just how deep the field was at the competition, the 8th seed beat the 1st seed. In similar fashion, we beat the 4th seed with a fair amount of ease and moved onto the semi-finals. In the Semi's we lost in 3 games by 8 points. Would have won by 2, but our alliance was penalized 10 for "de-scoring" a ringer. From the murmuring of the flight crew, it was a pretty bogus call. (Check out this thread to read all the grievances on the officiating.) Nevertheless, I was pretty darn proud of our kids. They fought the good fight.

Closing ceremonies was intermixed with the matches between divisional champions. The matches were pretty rowdy, lots of pushing and shoving, and one alliance was DQ'ed for tipping a robot on the other alliance. Closing ceremonies were slow, and long, and well, I'm not much for that sort of thing. It was impressive to hear about the team that one the Chairman's Award, the most prestigious award given. Team 365 from Wilmington, Delaware, the Miracle Workerz, have done some amazing things - very deserving in my opinion. A big head from DARPA announced the future involvement of his organization with FIRST and showed some cool videos about the things they do. Very cool. The DARPA Grand Challenge is an incredible event; check it out if you've never heard of it.

The wrap party after closing ceremonies was loud and dark. In all fairness, the party should have been outside, but rain and a Thrasher's playoff hockey game prevented that. So, performers prepared for an expansive venue were forced indoors. I should have brought ear plugs. The usual assortment of carnival-type games and booths were set up and the food was pretty good. The entertainment was pretty impressive: Stomp (the Stomp), a hypnotist, Circ de Soleil, and others put on a good, but deafening show. The team was exhausted, though, so we only stayed an hour or so.

Not a bad day! Not a bad trip! It's amazing what these kids, with a little help from some patient engineers, can do!

Robotics Trip to Atlanta - Day 2

Well, well, what a day! I've been fueled solely on caffeine today. I'm due to crash anytime now. So I'll have to make this quick. The run-down:

• Got woken up at 4:30 a.m. when the mentor I'm sharing a room with finally arrived. I knew he was getting in on Friday, just not that he was getting in at such a unbearable hour.
  
• Tossed and turned 'til 5, got up ran 3 miles on one of the hotel treadmills, watched Sportscenter on (yes, on) the treadmill. Remember how we're staying in this posh hotel that even has TVs built into their treadmills?
  
• Met the team, went to breakfast at the CNN center food court (it's miserable to have fast food for breakfast although I did enjoy one of those "Chug" chocolate milks), got to the Dome around 7:30.
• About 8 a.m.: Robot Parade! Just what you'd expect - a gaggle of nerds meandering around the playing fields acting... well, nerdy. Parade included too many people and not enough robots. 'nuff said.
• Opening ceremonies: blah, blah, blah... not really interesting to me.
  
• 9:28 a.m.: First qualification match: Us 52, Them 2 - we rocked.
• 11:03 a.m.: Second qualification match: Us 271, Them 46 - we really rocked. 271 points scored in one game turned out to be the highest for our field for the day. Our flight crew is awesome.
  
• 2:12 p.m.: Third match: Us 0, Them 128 - we through a chain and immobilized ourselves. Ugh. That was a tough one to watch.
• 2:42 p.m.: Fourth match: Us 82, Them 4 - Back to dominating. We were seriously the best robot on the field in this match. At this point, we were ranked 5th out of 86 teams in our division.
  
• 4:54 p.m.: Us 2, Them 54 - another tough loss. We were workin' like robotic beavers, but didn't get any help from our alliance partners. One broke down in the wrong place (and needless to say, at the wrong time), was penalized, and cost our alliance 10 hard-earned points. The other alliance had two former world champions. I could tell from the get-go that we were in for a drubbing. Final ranking: 38th. We're definitely better than that ranking shows and the other teams know it. It means though that we'll really have to market ourselves well tomorrow.
• Team photo in the bright sun with the robot. I may have gotten sun-burnt.
  
• Call my babe. (I miss her!) It's amazing how I've only been married for eight (eight!) months and I already miss sleeping by her.
  
• Dave & Busters: OK food, fun games, good times.
  

Up for tomorrow: Our final two qualification matches, alliance selection, tournament, and glory! We won't rank high enough to get automatically into the tournament, but we should be selected. Keep your fingers crossed!

Robotics Trip to Atlanta - Day 1

As a mentor for the HHS Robotics Team, I get to accompany the team to one competition a year. This year, it's the FIRST Championship at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta from April 12-14. If you're interested in the fun, you can see the webcast here.

A little bit of background: FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), the organization that runs the competitions, is committed to persuading young people that science and engineering are cool and deserve as much attention as American Idol. Each January FIRST announces a game. (Oooo, a game!) During the next six weeks, each team must design and construct a robot to play that game. For instance, this year's game is Rack 'N' Roll (animation here). It's played by two three-team alliances; each alliance must program their robots to strategically hang colorful inner-tubes on a large rack to score points. Competitions run several days to determine the seeding in a single-elimination tournament played on the last day.

The competitions have the look and feel of opening night of Return of the King - loud, cheering, costumed weirdos, face paint, and large crowds of Red Bull-abusing teenagers. It's pretty impressive. Dean Kamen, one of FIRST's founders, has said that he'd like their robotics competitions to be as popular as professional basketball. (If he aimed for professional hockey instead, we'd already be there!)

We left yesterday from school after 4th period. (No 6th period! Hooray!) The charter bus was much nicer than I was expecting - it had a decent TV/DVD system, faux leather headrests, and a bus driver that shamelessly rocked out to James Brown for miles and miles on I-81. During the twelve hour ride there, we watched the entire Star Wars saga (I say "entire" because the new ones don't count), Spaceballs, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Yup, Dean would be proud of us defying all those nerd stereotypes. Favorite nerd-ism overheard: "I bet I could outrun a Bantha." When arrived around 12:30, I checked everyone in, tucked 'em in (and took the wine out of their mini-fridges), and was in bed by 2. Not bad, especially considering that last year I didn't get to sleep until 6!

Today was a practice day. The pit crew unpacked the robot, checked it, and played six scheduled practice matches. Everyone was tired and pretty laid back. The robot was working fine from the get-go, but the software guys wanted to tweak code - they're never finished. I did some sudoku, listened to Cali's iPod (thanks, babe!), and wandered the pits. Highlight of the day: Autodesk, one of the big sponsors of FIRST, was handing out leatherman-like multi-tools after their presentations; some of the students got one.

Somehow our team ended up staying in a posh four star hotel, the Westin Peachtree Plaza, standing 73 floors tall in the heart of Atlanta, just down the street from the Georgia Dome. Towels are soft as newborn-bum, beds are stacked with dozens of pillows, and free wifi in the lobby. Not bad, eh? Some of the kids are in the pool now, some watching movies in their rooms, and others riding the glass elevator to the top floor to check out the view and the rotating restaurant. Only one frustration: with 73 floors, the elevators get a lot of use. Unfortunately, I don't know if these Westin elevators are up to the task. Sure, they're fast, but dumb as tar. I watched one bounce from the 45th to the 32nd back to the 39th, down to the 23rd back to the 30th, and so on as I waited for ten minutes for the thing to reach me on the 5th! They could learn something from C3PO!

What's up for tomorrow: opening ceremonies, the "robot parade" (don't know what that is, but I think it must be part of every nerd's paradise), start of qualifying matches, Dave & Buster's for dinner, hopefully victory and glory! Huzzah!

Textbook Writers vs. Students with Cameras

Love the video! As a physics teacher, I can sympathize with textbook writers. (It's hard to write 60 relevant, original practice problems!) I applaud the creativity of these kids!