States

Todays the big day, and i can't be there. All the work and hours lead up to this, and I can't be there. The most exciting moment of this journey yet, and I can't be there. It's honestly my own fault that I can't be there. As much as it sucks to be stuck at home today, it's my own fault. With the end of the trimester just around the corner i let assignments build up on me in all my classes. So rather than being out with the team I'm inside with my face buried in books an old assignments. I can only hope that today goes well as I spend the entirety of my day stressing about it. Hopefully the team puts on a show again at this competition and makes it to nationals so that i get a chance to make it up to them.

Change

Looking back on it now this experience has been great but I could have made it better. To start I would have made myself far more familiar with Robot C programs so that i would be able to help the team, not only on a building and odd-job level, but on a more in depth programming level as well. That in mind, I could have also put much more effort into studying programming along the way. Maybe I wouldn't be able to contribute on the programs as much as some of my other teammates, but that would have at least put me in a position to help. Above all i would have voiced my opinions a little stronger. Perhaps it was do to my lack of knowledge on what we, as a first year high school team were capable of, or maybe just my lack of confidence in what i had to say; either way I regret not being more assertive with my ideas. This post is in no way meant to discredit the experience I had, more so it is meant to help me reflect on what i personally have to improve upon in the future when in similar group scenarios.

Qualifier: Part 2

Finally our hard work sees its first true payoff! After our tough loss in the semifinals at the last tournament we bounced back stronger than ever. We hit the drawing bored creating a new arm, tightening our wiring, writing more efficient autonomous programs, and finally our most under rated improvement was improving upon our driving skills. In the first competition we we thrown off by every unexpected variable on the field, from blocks, to down wires, all the way to a wheel popping off. This time, however, we were ready. Managing every obstacle and dominating the competition on every level. In addition to being a member of the winning alliance, we won the award for most creative and innovative design, and placed second for our programing and the inspire award. Since most of you aren't familiar with the competition I'll explain: the inspire award is the most prestigious of awards going to the team with most all around excellence and all finalist for the award qualify for states automatically. So when you break it down we went from a disastrous tournament to qualifying for states in 3 separate categories, stay tuned to see where our underdog story goes.