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!

The robot has passed inspection, the booth is decorated beautifully, and we have been joined by Joey Zhou. All in all a very satisfying day. Of course, Team 902A is not done for the night. The team members still have an hour before curfew, which means the scouts will be sharing what they have learned about other teams, builders will be replacing two gears on the arm, and programmers will test their new firmware and VEXNet key updates. No rest for the weary.

Tomorrow is also a busy day. The team's first practice match begins at 12:19, then they proceed to three of their preliminary round matches. These matches can be streamed from the following link:http://www.robotevents.com/robot-competitions/vex-robotics-competition/2014-vex-robotics-middle-school-world-championship.html. Team 902A is in the Spirit division.

Here are some photos that help document the day:

Posting these photos to document our students' industriousness:

Math

Math and SS

Super Duper Rubik's cube

Here is a picture of our home for the next few days. Get psyched!

Arrived in Anaheim!

We made it! All members of the team are settled into the hotel and we are in the process of recovering from a long travel day yesterday. This morning, we will be working on the robot, shopping for booth decorations, and laying in some food supplies for the week. Convention Center opens this afternoon when we will get the robot inspected, set up the booth and get some practice driving in. Competition starts tomorrow! Check out the live feed starting tomorrow on www.robotevents.com.

Beautiful beach day for the memory book

Poolside Party Pictures

Zombies from the deep

Chinese food restaurant delivers!

Filling, if not gourmet

Waiting for the food allowed a long time for swimming.

The attitude is gratitude

It is easy to get discouraged when things don't go as you think they should. If any of  you watched the streamed matches, you would have seen evidence that robots don't always do what you want. We saw our robots get stuck on sacks, spontaneously lose power to the arm in the middle of a match, and even spin in circles without any input from the controllers. Thankfully there is more to this experience than winning. You win some, you lose some. The important thing is how you play the game, right?  Try telling that to a very competitive middle schooler. Sure, it is a heck of a lot more fun to win. Our challenge is to teach them how to lose graciously. Do you get stuck in the blame game or do you focus on identifying and solving the problems you can fix? Do you give up trying to fix what you think is wrong or do you bounce back and do your best in each moment? Obviously, we want our kids to learn resilience and perseverance, so we give them opportunities like the World Championships to practice these qualities.

And what a world event this is! This is truly the Olympics of robotics. We witnessed more than 700 teams from 24 countries parade across the stage of the Super Dome yesterday morning and not one American team won either middle school division. We have quite a lot of work to do to play a role on this large of a world stage. So top of the agenda at last night's team meeting was to check the team members' attitudes and make sure they considered all the had to be grateful for. Are they grateful for this opportunity to see the best VEX robots in the world? Are they grateful that they have beds, food, and a hotel pool? Are they grateful for each others' camaraderie and for our supervision? All of that was expressed. An attitude of gratitude? You bet! 

Second on the agenda was safety. After two days of allowing a freedom of movement within the confines of the convention center, we are back in buddy system mode where we move and make decisions as a pack. And Doug and I are alpha wolves, without question. Tomorrow the team will travel to Newport Beach, taking public transit, so that we can all dip our toes in the Pacific Ocean. 

Troubleshooting

Nothing ever goes as you expect it to go. Looking at the results of a match or even seeing the match streamed live on robotevents.com doesn't show what goes on when the robot comes back to the pit. So much rebuilding. So much reprogramming. So much redesigning. So much negotiating. So what if they aren't so good at cleaning up after themselves? You can't have everything!

Why we're here

We arrived at the Convention Center this morning (Thursday) ready to go. Our booth was decorated, our robots were ready, our scouting notebooks were all set up, and the match schedule was published.

The scouts headed right out as soon as they could, and after some minor adjustments to the programming, both robots headed to the practice fields and the skills challenges. We prefer an empty booth because it means that everyone is doing what they came here to do.

Scouts learn how to be good listeners and critical thinkers. Drivers and coaches sell their wares to other scouts.

Food Photos

Drinking coconut milk from a real coconut

Rootbeer Floats!

Money Management 101

Food. It's an interesting study to see the variety of ways that middle schoolers meet their need for that most basic stuff of life. Team members are given their food allowance for two days at a time--that is $60.00 for six meals. We discovered early on that the hotel's all-you-can eat buffet for $9.50 (hot eggs, meat, waffles) or $5.50 (cold cereal, fruit, muffins, hard-boiled eggs) is actually a good deal. After stuffing themselves yesterday, some were disinclined to buy anything at Target that might serve as their less expensive breakfast or lunch alternatives to the Convention Center Food Court food. Others, the sensible ones, aka the girls, pooled their funds and bought fruit, soup, and hot pockets at Target to cover the midday meals for the rest of the week. And then there were the few who thought snacks and Gatorade might be fun.

Walking back from the hotel after the midday break today with Griffin, I asked him what he ate for lunch and his response was, "Some pizza bagels and yogurt." He then commented that he wished he had bought more fresh fruit and vegetables at Target, but had made up for that lack by doing 100 push-ups, 30 push-ups, and a 1-minute plank. We all know that nutrition works like that.:)

Dinners have been our together time. Tuesday evening featured excellent Vietnamese food where we discovered fresh coconut milk right from the coconut. Wednesday was pizza and other Italian food delivered to the hotel. So far, no one has gone hungry from lack of money and they seem to be happy with their choices. Parents, you have done a fine job of creating adventurous and responsible eaters and it is a pleasure breaking bread with them. Right now, I have the scouts scouting our dinner options for tonight. They've got skills!

Follow the proceedings online

Sunny Anaheim, CA is host to the VEX World Championships. The excitement is building.

As promised, here is the link to follow the results of our matches online. Click here, then follow 902C in the Opportunity Division and 902D in the Spirit Division.

Arrival and Settling In

Sorry everyone for the delay in getting this blog up and running. The days have been full and the blog I wrote this morning describing the play by play of our journey to Anaheim disappeared in a flash when I tried to upload a photo. This is attempt number two, which will be posted sans photo. 

Right now the majority of the team members are playing in the hotel pool after a long day, which began at 8:00 with a shopping trip to Target for food and booth decorations, then proceeded until 6:00 setting up the booth at the Anaheim Convention Center. The robots were unpacked from their busted boxes yesterday and prepared for their journey from the hotel to the Convention Center. Both robots seem to be working, though tweaks to the programming and hydraulic systems were in order today and will probably continue throughout the competition. We beat the long lines for the inspection tables by being ready early and though the practice fields were filling up early, both teams took the opportunity to take the robots for a spin. Tomorrow morning we will be arriving at the Convention Center early so that both robots can get in at least one Skills Challenge Round before the Practice Rounds begin at 11:00.

Scouting has also begun in earnest. The scouting teams set up their notebooks yesterday after the divisions were posted online. I will include a link in my next post along with a picture or two. There are 160 Middle School teams altogether and our teams are split between the two divisions. Team 902C is in the Opportunity Division and 902D is in the Spirit Division. You can follow the results of their matches by going to robotevents.com. There are 10 matches in the preliminary round for each team, so the scouts need to gather data on 30 teams right away, ten alliance partners and twenty opposing teams. The scouts' mission is twofold: gather information on the 80 other teams in the division and sell our robots to those 80 teams in case any of those other teams is in a position of choosing a 902 team for an alliance partner in the Championship Rounds.

Everyone seems in good spirits. Hopefully this swim will help them all relax enough to get some shut eye before the real games begin tomorrow.