Our First Robotics Competition

This past week was a busy one.  Kyle is on the Robotics team, and this weekend was his team's  first meet.  The meet lasted over a couple of days.  The team worked really hard the last couple of months building the robot, and preparing it for competition.  Unfortunately the first day, there were a few issues that were beyond our control that hurt our standings the first day. 

If you have never been to a robotic meet before, they are actually quite exciting.  At the beginning of the  building season each team finds out the what their robot has to do.  This year it had to be able to pick up a ball, and throw it through a goal.  In addition to being able to throw a ball, it also has to compete against other robots trying to do the same thing at the same time.  Each match up has two teams of three robots.  Depending on what color you are assigned for that match,  you could be an ally  or a competitor of another team. The more points your robot earns, the higher it is ranked. After all the preliminary matches, the top 8 teams each pick two more teams to be their allies during elimination rounds.   Our team is friends with the team that was ranked in 1st, so we were hoping we might be picked for an alliance. They decided to pick another team.  While we were disappointed, we totally understood.  We will have another chance to compete again in a few weeks. 

Here is a closer view of the robots.  In this match we were on the blue team, and holding the ball.  The red robots were blocking us, trying  to keep us from turning around and scoring.   Kyle had tried out for the drive team, who are the students who man the controls during each match. We know he did well during try outs, but the coaches decided to go with  team members with experience. I think that was a very wise decision.  There was so much involved, that it was much better to watch and learn especially for his first meet.   I have no doubt though, that he will be driving the robot some day.. All those hours of playing video games, have definitely come in handy.   

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