Still in it. It was a good match, we simply got to Botguy much faster and placed him on the line. If the other team had gotten to the island first it might not have been the same outcome. As the weaker teams continue to get eliminated, our opponents get harder and harder to defeat. We’re constantly working on our hardware and software throughout the day. We try to make minor adjustments that will make major positive changes for our robots.

Having one loss already, it’s really important for us to stay strong during these rounds of competition. In order to get to the final round we have to win the entire losers bracket. Plus, after we hypothetically win the losers bracket, we would have to beat the winner of the regular bracket twice in order to take home first place. Not exactly an easy task. This was our last round today. Fingers crossed tomorrow will be successful.

We were so close. TJ only beat us by twelve points. It was an extremely tough loss, not gonna lie. We knew TJ would be difficult to beat. On a side note, TJ made changes to their robots and strategies from Regionals that look strangely familiar. At a glance  you might think their bots are just our clone bots… Also, I’d just like to mention that this is our first loss this season, Regionals included, just saying. It sucks big time to have one loss this early in the competition, but I have a feeling won’t have such trying competition for at least some time. Plus Rick Astley  (in the form of Benjin) promised he was never gonna give us up and never gonna let us down. Take what you will from that. Let’s go round four.

We may or may not have owned the other team. You can tell from our score that both of our robots worked perfectly. Thank goodness create is fully functional again. It has given us quite a few scares. Our bots are very good, but this match we didn’t have the toughest competition. The other team only ran one robot, and it fell over. We can only hope that we continue to hold up as our opponents get more and more challenging. Speaking of next round, I hear we’re playing a team from TJ, one of our rivals and hardest competitors. I’ve been told they are consistently doing very well so we’re all a bit nervous for next round. We’ll see what happens.

Let me just tell you, Botguy was as close to the line as he could possibly be without actually touching the line. Curses. Oh well, a win is a win. We also somehow managed to not get all seven ducks on the line and not drop any sponges on oil slicks. We still scored over a hundred though. Win? I think so.

We were actually competing against the team we share a table with. Even though we were competitors, we wished the best for them and they were happy for us when we won. It could be because this is a double elimination tournament so we didn’t knock them out, but I like to think it’s because we’re good sports. Either way, it was a great start.

Yeah, we had a few issues. Our create bot’s arm decided it wouldn’t actually reach above the platform and instead it would get caught. This caused create to completely malfunction to give us a total of zero points. However our lego bot didn’t fail us and it gave us 86 points all by itself. Way to go lego bot. Apparently, Mary didn’t give enough love to create. She’ll have to try harder next time. Our average was 148, however only the two highest scores from the seeding rounds are actually put into the average that decides seeding, and that number was 179. This brought us to finish seeding in fourth place. Not too shabby, all things considered. Hopefully we’ll fix up any glitches and be ready for head-to-head by the time it rolls around. I haven’t the slightest clue as to whom we’ll be playing against tomorrow, but I’ll keep you guys informed. Keep a look out for a blog about the things we do when we’re not playing with robots because I think you’ll be rather entertained.

We could still do better, but we could also still do a lot worse. My fingers are crossed for scoring so high next round that we have to step on the hopes and dreams of other teams to get there. Not that I condone unsportsmanlike conduct. I intend to crush them in the most polite and respectful way. However the way things are going, I doubt we’ll crush anyone. That’s okay though. We really just want to our robots to function properly and we’re quite sure that if they do so, we’ll do well. We’ve dropped from first to second I believe. There’s another round though and I’m confident we will be able to bring up our score. I think we’d all really love to get first place in seeding. I was really happy with our success at Regionals and everyone would be ecstatic if we were able to keep it up. We’re convinced that our robots do better when Mary personally wishes them good luck. You’ll be pleased to know Mary has promised to give them all the luck she can give before our next seeding round.

Not our best score, but not terrible. That was actually our average from stress rehearsal. Comparatively this isn’t too shabby. We’re in first place for the seeding as of now but we’ll see how the other two rounds go. Considering how many problems we’ve been having with the create bot and how devastating they’ve been to our practice scores I don’t think we can complain about a 186. We overshot the green line with Botguy, so I think all in all we did pretty great. I believe Benjin and Tucker are working on hardware and software solutions for this problem. We need to continue tweaking the create bot until we get it right. I think our bot gets to the center platform the fastest, and if we’re not the fastest we’re very close. If we can get create to function properly, I’ve got a feeling (pun intended) that we’re gonna go really far in this tournament. On to round two!

Separating the boys from men (and the girls from women).

Yesterday our team, or rather an abridged version of our team, arrived in St. Louis for the Global Conference on Educational Robotics (GCER). For most of us here, this is our first time at GCER and I speak for all of us when I say we’re totally psyched. In between rounds of cards and a trip to the grocery store we began reassembling our robots and practicing our presentation. Technically, Tucker and Benjin practiced their presentation, but the rest of us watched, gave constructive criticism, and provided moral support!

Today I’m coming to you from the pit. All the teams are here to do practice runs before the real competition starts tomorrow. I was told there would be teams from all over the world here but I didn’t think they meant it. We’re stationed two tables away from a team from Qatar, there’s apparently a team from Norway, and I just spoke to a couple of guys from Poland.

We’ve been having some trouble in the practice rounds. Our first go we had a miserable create fail. The second time we had minor technical issues, but we improved. After that we continued to improve, however there were issues with the dirty duck grabbing. The next round was sabotaged by poor board setup. It wasn’t our fault though so I guess it wasn’t that bad. For our fifth round of practice, Tucker and Benjin had to give the presentation, so I had to accompany Albert to the practice table and help set up. (I did an excellent job if I do say so myself.) Unfortunately, regardless of the fact that Albert had the most capable hands working with her, our create bot failed epically once again. Round six: I went up again, worked my magic again, create failed again. This does not please me. Seventh time is a charm? Not exactly, but our create bot didn’t commit suicide this time!

Before I mentioned Tucker and Benjin had a presentation to do. Two representatives from each team have a meeting with the judges in which they discuss the entire process their team goes through before competition. I’ve seen the guys presentation a couple of times and it was great. They came back feeling pretty good about it so I trust it went well. We really appreciate Tucker and Benjin stepping up and giving the presentation (at Regionals, Steven and Liam were tasked with it). My first day at Globals has been a memorable one. I cannot tell you how much fun I had. Highlight of the day: Benjin Dubishar Rick Roll’d me with his very own singing. Can’t wait for tomorrow.

Yes I’ve been making a movie on behalf of the Dead Robot Society. I call it a movie but I suppose it’s really more like a music video of sorts. Basically what I’m doing is recording my teammates dancing, singing, and being generally entertaining to the song “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas. It’s quite an experience. Let me just tell you a little bit about what making the movie entails.

The first thing I wanted to see in the video was my teammates mouthing a couple of the lyrics in the song. Apparently it was harder than it looked because it took on average about four tries for anyone on the team, mentors included, to get the timing right. The outtakes are for more amusing than the actual clips I used for the video, which are pretty amusing. A lot of the video is us saying the words to the song. I’m sure my companions got sick of me sticking a camera in their face, but Mr. Gras insisted so there wasn’t much I could do about it.

The boys in the middle of filming.

Another thing we did was act out the words of the song. When I say we acted out the words, what I actually mean is we made Kelly act out some of the words. Her parts were my favorite parts of the movie. Pay close attention to the girl with the curly brown hair in the school uniform when you watch the video. Sometimes the acting we did wasn’t limited to the words of the song though. Like Miss Allison for example, merely acted bored for many chunks of the video. (We’ve yet to determine if she was actually acting.) There were some other parts we acted as well, but I can’t give everything away now can I?

Besides acting things out, there was also quite a bit of random dancing. A lot of that was again provided by Allison, although she had help from Mary and some of the other team members. Random dancing was a crucial part of our video. Without it, I might not have been able to have enough footage to complete the movie.

In addition to our own personal embarrasing moments, there are many failures from our robots incorperated into the film. Most of them are duck grabbing fails, but if memory serves I believe there are a few other fails as well. There are alos juggling fails, but that wasn’t a robot, that was Steven.

The movie was really fun and really challenging to make. Watching the clips of everyone regardless of whether they failed or succeeded was highly enjoyable. Making the movie was also a lot of work. First of all, I had a deadline for the first time. I was used to watching my teammates race against the clock, but I was always able to do my job at a leisurely pace. In contrast, with regards to the movie, Mr. Gras wanted it finished by regionals so I had to work quickly. Secondly, and more importantly, I had to listen to that song. I didn’t even like the song in the first place. Plus it’s not like I got to just listen to it on repeat. I had to keep rewinding and listening to three second clips over and over again. It was terrible. However, whenever I watch the finished product, someone thanks me for doing it, or someone comments on how much they enjoyed it, I realize it was all worth it.

(Pssst, here’s the link:) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko3CpFJ0unw

Every year on the Thursday before regionals, the team comes to the BotCave for something Mr. Gras calls “stress rehersal”. During this, whoever will be at the table running the robots at regionals, this year that’s Allison and Tucker, go through test runs while the rest of the team bothers them in any way possible. This includes playing loud music, flashing lights, shouting, and Allison’s personal favorite, poking. Stress rehersal is a really fun night for everyone who isn’t running the robots. In fact, it’s even kind of fun for them.

Allison attempting to block us out. Her efforts were futile.

The parents can come to watch and or participate in stress rehersal as well. Some parents, i.e. Mr. Grasmeder, participate more zealously than others. Stress rehersal is rather entertaining for all who have the pleasure of viewing it. If you get a chance you should definitely come check it out. I asked Mr. Gras if there’d be another stress rehersal before globals and his response, which was pretty much what I expected, was ”If I’m still breathing.” Apparently it was utterly ridiculous that I even asked. I’m glad we’ll have another one. Because stress rehersal, while it is, how should I put this… stressful, it’s also a lot of fun for the whole team. It’s something you can participate in without any knowledge of code writing or hardware, so I give it four out of four stars and two big thumbs up.

Aren't Tucker's earmuffs cute? He wore them so he couldn't hear the whistle Mr. Gras was blowing.