Machine Behaving Badly 2018 - The Year Our Motto Was Wrong

A few more thoughts on the Machines Behaving Badly event.  It was unusual for two reasons this year.

Firstly because exactly one week earlier our community had suffered a tragedy.  A hit and run driver had struck and killed three girl scouts and one adult leader as they were picking up trash along a roadside.  This happened at high noon on a sunny day.  They were wearing Hi Vis safety vests.  The man involved deserves every bit of the severe consequences that will be forthcoming.

I thought this might put a shadow over our day.  Ours is a small community, nobody is more than one or two links away from these families who suddenly lost so much of their futures.

But to my surprise it seems people are better than that.  The lesson that came out of this was that you should appreciate every moment with your child.  The fun and silly ones, the mundane every day ones, even the ones where your kid is being difficult as middle school age children so often are.  Maybe the larger numbers of kids shaking hands, and of parents seeking me out to say thank you reflects this.

The other thing that was different is perhaps only apparent to the small number of people crazy enough to organize and run events of this sort.  Something very strange indeed happened.

You have to know that in the history of robot combat events the only one that always starts on time, at exactly High Noon, is Machines Behaving Badly.  Well this year when I showed up hours before the event I already had a half dozen Minions busily working to get things ready.  At 11:45 everything was ready.

I turned to a couple of my pals from The Old Days and we discussed whether one could actually start a robotics event AHEAD OF TIME.  There was a concern voiced that this was so fundamentally impossible that we might set off a disturbance of the Time Space Continuum that would tear the very fabric of Reality.  I mentioned this possibility in my lead off comments to the audience.

The event flew along.  Assorted parts also of course flew.  And were then rapidly re-affixed at Robot Hospital so that the action could continue.  Most robot events have approximately 30 percent of the event time actually involving action in the arena.  We seem to have attained an impossible percentage somewhere around 55%.  I mean, you have to take at least a little time to load the next match in and to sweep the debris of the previous one out.

The fabric of Space Time groaned a bit but we all survived.  The robots, not so much.

Onward to the next phase of the robot class, stay tuned for Barby Jeep Nonsense.

Major Thanks of course to the large crew of experienced Minions who not only accomplished the impossible, again, but did so with a quantum leap in efficiency in the Fall of 2018 the year that our official slogan actually proved untrue.