Boston (The city not the band)

I went up to Boston on Thursday.  I refuse to drive into that city so I drove to riverside and took the T in.  I was on the train after rush hour, so it wasn’t busy.  I headed right to Agganis Arena when I got there.  It’s a really nice facility to hold a competition in.

I was field reset and clicker duty (counting balls as they went into the goal).  By Saturday, the field rest crew had a system worked out and was flying.  I was told that someone timed us once and it took us 47 seconds to rest the field.  We were running ahead of schedule for a while, until some robots had some issues.  Overall the regional was a ton of fun and I had a great time.

It was also really great to see Mo and Vikki again.  Mo was very kind and let me stay at her place, down the road from the regional.  I went out with her and Rich Thursday night for diner at a Mexican place.  It was very good and very cheap, the best combination.  Friday, I had Chinese with Vikki and then hung out with her and Mo.  Since I had to get up early each day to be at the competition, we didn’t do much.

I always mean to write more in here, but when I get time to do it, I don’t.

I’m leaving for Philly on Wednesday.  It’ll be interesting.

M-azing

It still amazes me when people mention something that I write on here.  It’s also weird when people recognize you and you don’t know/recognize them.  I’ve had this happen a handful of times, and it’s weird every time.  Is this a sign of fame? Or is this just me being extremely optimistic?

Boston is next weekend.  I’ll be up there on Thursday and stay until Saturday night.  It should be lots of fun.  I hope I don’t have to go nuts volunteering.  Hopefully I’ll get an easy job and just have fun while I’m there.  Maybe I’ll try to do something for FIRSTcast up in Boston.  Anyone have any suggestions?  It should be something that I can do by myself and be somewhat interesting and be a few minutes long. (in the 3–5 minute range)  I have an idea or two.  We’ll see if I can pull any of them off.

Joe Matt is my hero of the week.  There’s some awesome stuff happening that Joe is behind and it’s freaking hilarious.  Plus I’m getting an awesome shirt.

Now playing: Leo Laporte and the TWiTs – TWiT 46: XP-Mini Madness

Break time

Huzzah, free time!  I’m going to sleep in tomorrow for the first time since…not last Tuesday, but the one before it.  I probably won’t be able to sleep past 9am, but whatever.

Not much has happened since last entry.  I guess I’ll write a thing about the teaching at Moser school, since I have to do a paper on it anyway.  Sixth Sense is on now, though.  I’ll write it a bit later.

I need something that automatically links to sites I want, like IMDB and CD and other things.

 

The weekend

Since I’ve been getting more hits in the past few days, I think my audience wants and update.  I have an audience?

Well, I’ll start with Thursday, practice day.  There’s nothing like competitions.  They’re always a good time, even if you lose a finger or something (don’t worry, I didn’t lose a digit).  Right after the convention center opened, I met up with Matt Krass from FIRSTcast.  He’s alot shorter in person than I thought.  We talked about a few things and decided to meet up later.  I then spent some time in the pits working on things and generally getting people and the robot ready for competition.  Matt and I then met up with Mike Sperber and discussed some things for the show that we could and would be doing.  We got some awesome news from him and did some preparation for the show.  Overall, Thursday went very well.

Friday was the first day of qualification rounds.  We didn’t do too great, not horrible, but not awesome.  Honestly, I don’t remember much from that day for some reason.  Probably because of my bad memory.  I do remember Matt dragging me around alot trying to get pictures with people.  Although it was more of him pushing me around getting pictures.  Since I know more people up here than he does, I did the introductions and took the pictures.

Saturday was the big day.  Matt and I had a big interview in the morning right after/during opening ceremonies.  The Connecticut Center for Science and Exploration and FIRST announced a partnership.  They will be working together to create a FIRST exhibit.  Well, Matt and I got to interview Dr. Ted Sergi, President and CEO from the Science Center, and Dean Kamen, founder of FIRST.  How awesome is that?  I think those interviews definitely put the podcast on the map.  You can get the interviews here.
Then the team had some more matches that we did better in and showed off what our robot can do.  That seemed to work and our team was selected by the number seven seed, Gus team 228.  Right after alliance selection, we recorded the live show for FIRSTcast.  Thanks to everyone who showed up for that, it was a blast to record. 
Then we had elimination matches.  A few things went wrong and we were knocked out in the first round.  It was fun, and I think the drivers learned something from it.  While I was sitting in the stands watching the rest of the eliminations, I looked over at my dad.  He was text messaging on his phone.  How weird is that?  Old people can’t use technology.

That’s good for now.  Maybe I’ll write about the rest tomorrow after class.

 

Long update

This one is going to be all over the place.

I’ll start with last Thursday, when it snowed.  The snow cancelled my last two classes that day.  Normally something like that is good, but when it delays a midterm and speech it’s not so good.  Especially when you have competition on the following weekend and you’re going to have to miss one day of class.  Needless to say, I’m not missing class on Thursday anymore, even though it’s competition.  Well, it’s the practice day, but it’s still important.

Which brings me to all the crap that happens at robotics.  Since, apparently, a lot of people read this, I can’t go into much detail (You know how employers are now reading potential employee’s blogs and things).  Let’s just say that UTC this weekend should be interesting.  Whether it’s a good interesting, or a bad interesting, I don’t know but it will most likely be a weird hybrid of both.

I had something more to talk about, but I forget what it was.  Didn’t I write something about that before?  Oh well.

New Jersey is so two years ago

I was up at BAE this weekend.  For those of you that aren’t a N.E.R.D. (get it, HA!), it was the robotics competition in Manchester, New Hampshire.  It was a lot of fun.  It was very good to see how the game played  in a real regional.  I learned a little more about the dynamics of the game.

Just before I left for NH, I found my hat!  It was in my paintball bag, also my lacrosse bag.  I think I wore it when we went paintballing a few days after Christmas, and put it in my bag.  I then forgot about it until I found it on Friday.

I don’t feel like writing anymore.  I’ll give you a big update on Tuesday.