I'll have more on this down the road a bit. It takes a while after a watershed sort of event to get perspective. Did we Win it All and qualify for Worlds? No, not even close. But that's OK.
It was in some ways a surreal experience. We drove down to the venue (outside of Milwaukee) running ahead of a storm front. A few hours after we drove through some places along the way they were hit hard by tornadoes. At the event proper all meaningful night before practice and field calibration was cancelled as we huddled in interior hallways while sirens blared. I blame our friends from the next door town. Their team name is STORM, which is some sort of acronym. Their event give away buttons....
Our team of course has had experience with nasty weather curtailing practice time. It bit us hard at our Lacrosse event, so we were well prepped and did not suffer too much from this latest schedule glitch. I am however convinced that at some point someone on our team inadvertently offended an Old Gypsy Woman who put a curse on us. I must relate a few stories along these lines one day...
We played well early. Our design was simple and rugged. This is good, we had no serious mechanical issues. But there were a dozen or robots with seriously better designs, and as the event went on we encountered them with predictable results.
Still, we were an attractive second pick robot, and went into the playoff rounds feeling strong. First match was against the alliance that eventually did Win it All. Yikes, they deserve the trip to Houston. Had we snuck in we'd have been even more outclassed there....
But what is class? This is an outstanding group of students. The core of the team are kids we've seen grow up and thrive over the last four to five years. We'll miss these soon to graduate stars. They are a big part of our success. There's some new kids coming up as well. Another tip of the cap to the students who, once again, were tasked with a complex video project on a tight time line and with insufficient instructions from the event organizers. It is very satisfying to be able to hold up the USB drive and say: "Here ya go. 3:18 duration, done five hours ahead of deadline". I'll get it posted here in the days ahead.
And we won the Quality Award. Basically this is for the team that builds the most robust machine in the competitive field. I think we mostly got it for the impressive THE MEG bar that anchored the front of our design. It took some mighty hits as our driver gained confidence. And throughout the entire event, heck the entire season, we never lost an intake component.
There are some good stories there, stories for another day...
On the way home we stopped for food. The team wanted McDonalds. We'd been to a Chick fil A a couple nights before. Great food, but their Play Land had a sign saying you had to be under a certain height to Play. McDonalds has a more lenient policy.
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