Final photos from Worlds 2014

 Our valiant volunteers!

Championship final matches: Enjoying the day with 902A!

Michael, Alex, Ian, and I caught the view of waning crescent rising in the eastern sky at 5:30 am. We were standing on a sky bridge at LAX waiting for the second van to come in and lucked out seeing the moon and the changing light show of the pillars at the airport.

Photos of the last days in Anaheim

Lest we forget...

Hanging out in the VEX Dome, waiting for the final matches to be played

Waiting in line to grab a few last-minute souvenirs of the tournament

Goodbye from on high

A final look back at the 2014 VEX World Championship sign.

This is supposed to be a synchronized swimming version of an "A".

Day is done, like the sun...

The last day of competition is both quick and slow--quick because 902A's matches in the morning were over in a flash; slow because it took seemingly forever to crown a world championship in each of the different competitions here. We came before 8 AM and left at 6 PM, and none of the champions had been named by that time. We checked the results during dinner on our VEX Via app, glad that we beat the restaurant rush that would hit a half an hour later.

Reflections: Today's slogan was, "Enjoy the day with 902A." We made up little bags of Jolly Ranchers to give to potential alliance partners and made sure everyone had their fun and game faces on. Winning both morning matches definitely would have improved the chances of being picked as an alliance partner, but even so, 902A was being seriously considered. That's nice. We ended up ranked 26th out of 76 teams in the Spirit Division, but it's not all about rank in this game. The alliance selections are all about who you know and how well you know them. The scouts worked diligently to establish these connections with the other teams, but they were competing with established ties that have been forged over years of competing with each other. When we weren't chosen, no one seemed too discouraged. Here's what's cool: After the responsibilities to the team were satisfied, so many of our team members went to volunteer their time to set up the fields for other matches. What a great group of kids.

Tomorrow morning before sunrise, we will board our PrimeTime Shuttles and be off to the airport to catch our early morning flight. We will definitely miss the 8th graders next year. They are a special group of people. Parents, be proud. See you tomorrow on the other coast!

Photos from Friday

Nico marched for 902A in the Parade of Nations at the Opening Ceremonies. One member of each of the 700+ teams representing 26 countries marched across the stage and around the VEX Dome.

During a match Nico, John, and Michael have to communicate with each other and the other members of their alliance to put together a winning strategy.

Commitment to task 101

In case any of you are worried that the future generation doesn't demonstrate enough task commitment, here was 902A's schedule for the day:

6:30-7: Breakfast
7:15: Meet in lobby with shirts and bow ties on, robot and support equipment packed ready to transport to Convention Center
7:30: Enter Convention Center to set up pit area
7:45-8:30: Scout like crazy, improve robot, plan strategy with alliance partners
8:30-9:30: Opening ceremonies and parade of nations (think Olympics of robotics)
9:36: Grab fresh batteries, air pump, safety goggles, controllers, robot and head to on-deck area with full entourage of team supporters
9:46: Win match
9:50-11:16: Return to pit area, scout like crazy, take robot apart, put robot together, plan strategy with alliance partners, talk with second round of judges
11:16: Grab fresh batteries, air pump, safety goggles, controllers, robot and head to on-deck area with full entourage of team supporters, minus a few to scout and cover pit area
11:36: Lose match
11:46: Go back to pit area, bicker a little bit, then decide it's lunch time for some and time to take apart the robot once again for others
1:00: Plan strategy with alliance partners for next matches
1:21: Grab fresh batteries, air pump, safety goggles, controllers, robot and head to on-deck area with full entourage of team supporters, minus a few to scout and cover pit area
1:41: Win match
1:51-2:32: Return to pit area, scout like crazy, take robot apart, put robot together, try to get some practice driving in, plan strategy with alliance partners
2:32: Grab fresh batteries, air pump, safety goggles, controllers, robot and head to on-deck area with full entourage of team supporters, minus a few to scout and cover pit area
2:52: Win match
3:02-3:15: Talk with third team of judges
3:15-3:47: Return to pit area, scout like crazy, take robot apart, put robot together, try to get some practice driving in, find problems with robot, fix them in a hurry, plan strategy with alliance partners
3:47: Grab fresh batteries, air pump, safety goggles, controllers, robot and head to on-deck area with full entourage of team supporters, minus a few to scout and cover pit area
4:07: Win last match of the day
4:17-5:30: Return to pit, scout like crazy, take robot apart only a little bit, put robot together, finally get some practice driving in, pack up pit area
5:30-6:30: VEX Robotics Competition Game Reveal for next year's 2014-2015 season
6:30: Walk to hotel with robot and supplies in tow
7:00: Eat Subway sandwiches and relax
8:00: Builders meet in Room 620; Scouts meet in Room 618
9:00: Scouts' and drivers' curfew
9:30: Builders' curfew

Are we there yet? Nope! Tomorrow we get to do it all over again!

Though these kids get tired, they keep on going, they keep solving problems, they keep trying to keep up their spirits and their senses of humor. We do not hear a lot of complaining. Great job raising your kids, parents!

Hats off to Team 902A!

Some photos from Day Two

Team 902A is ready to go. The pit area looks great.

 The scouts are out doing their job: gathering data and making friends. David's Mandarin is getting a workout!

Caleb keeps a scouting notebook to document what other robots can do, so the coach and drivers can better plan their match strategy.

Part of the glory of this competition is that our team members can see what is possible. Peter and Ian are scouting a high school team's pit area that is very professionally done.

Speaking of professional, judges are always impressed by 902A's engineering notebooks. Here's a peak at Griffin's incredible drawings that document the design cycle.

Nico's engineering notebooks do an amazing job at documenting everything the team accomplishes at practices, tournaments, and outreach events. If you zoom in, you can see he even gives the team a productivity score.:)

Day One of Competition

If we measured our whole experience here by the win-loss record of 902A's matches on the field, then one would have to say that we have gotten off to a rocky start. The first match was a practice match with an alliance partner from Massachusetts who carried us to victory. For anyone who saw the match on live stream, it would be apparent that the robot was not ready for prime time. Thankfully, there was time in the pit before the first real match to fix problems with the intake, the arm, the programming, etc. and come up with a win that highlighted what the robot can do. Matches two and three were less than stellar as the robot "browned out" in match two and flipped over in autonomous, never to rise again, in match three. Tomorrow we have five qualifying matches to improve our ranking and be in the running for Saturday's alliance picks.

For those who don't know anything about how the robots compete in VEX, I will do my best to explain. Every year, VEX Robotics designs a new game and this year's challenge is called "Toss Up". If you want to see the details of how a robot can score in Toss Up, go to www.robotevents.com. The overall structure of a match stays essentially the same every year: Our robot is allied with another team that is assigned to us for each of 10 preliminary matches and we compete against another alliance that has been randomly brought together. Each match starts with a 15-second autonomous round where the robot is programmed to score as many possible points on its own. Then coaches and drivers take over the control of the robots and in coordination with their alliance partner must put together a winning strategy. The teams are also attempting to earn "strength points" by keeping the point spread close.

After the qualifying rounds are complete on Saturday morning, the eight top-ranked teams each choose two alliance partners to move on to the elimination bracket. Here is where the importance of establishing relationships comes in. Even if our team ranks in the top 24 by Saturday, there is no guarantee we will be chosen as an alliance partner. The goal then is to build relationships with all 76 teams in our division, so that not only our ranking, but our reliability and ease of communication will be remembered as the top eight teams choose alliances. Here's where the scouts come in. We have an awesome team of six scouts who spend their days gathering data and marketing our robot. There are more than 700 teams here, so it's quite a job to even find the team you are supposed to scout. Language barriers need to be surmounted as there are at least 26 different countries represented at this tournament. The scout's job becomes even more difficult when you consider that the robot is hardly ever in the pit area. If the teams aren't competing on the field, then they are practicing, entering in skills challenges, or literally out to lunch. Despite the difficulty of the job, our scouts are doing a bang-up job!

Let's not forget our valiant pit crew. Two members of the team are assigned to maintain the pit area in working order, fielding questions from other teams' scouts, and telling our story to the judges. Battery management is a key responsibility of the pit crew, as is the ability to fix anything that is broken when the robot comes back from the competition field. Thanks to Jill Deans, the pit crew had a full complement of engineering notebooks to show to the judges yesterday during their interview. Just in time, Jill!:)

Gotta go! The troops will be downstairs shortly, ready to start Day Two!