Day 6 - Competition and Baseball

We should title this one - RUN! Seems as those we never had a chance to catch our breath today!

See today's pictures here!

We left the hotel at 6:45 this morning. Because our robot competition time as one of the first ones, we had to be there early so we could sit in a special place at the opening ceremonies. The ceremony started out with a drum line marching in. That was pretty cool. Next came some remarks from Woodie Flowers (the National Advisor for FIRST) and Dean Kamen (founder of First and the inventor of the Segway). An interesting fact we learned is that in 1998 only a small fraction of people were employed in Engineering, Math, Science and Computer skills. With the help of programs like FIRST, that number is now almost 60%.

Our first robot run went ok. We received 175 points. Our trouble mission worked partially, but lost the loops on the way back to base. We then had a call back for another judging session. We were called back to the teamwork judging. The kids seem to enjoy the judging sessions so they do pretty well.

We quickly headed back to the competition table, and this time scored a 105. Two missions bombed out on us. But, as usual the team was still proud of everyone and cheered and congratulated everyone for their effort.

A quick lunch, a time or two on the practice mat, then back to our final round. Our trouble mission worked GREAT and we almost missed the rest of the match just jumping and hugging each other! We scored 210 points. Although we came in 76 out of 86 teams, we are very proud of our efforts. We do realize that we need to step up our robot design and use of sensors. We saw some fantastic examples and can't wait to see if we can put the ideas to use.

Our competition day ended about 2:30 and we rushed off to the Atlanta Braves baseball game. We were really early, but it was nice sitting in the outer area enjoying the sun. Several of the kids played a little catch and some frisbee. As game time got closer, and vendors, etc starting showing up - we noticed a radio station setting up a remote broadcast. Our talker (Ryleigh) headed over there and asked if we could be on the radio! They said yes, and gave the kids some freebie stuff and then they got a "shout out" to Montana and got to give the station id.

Into the game, and the first stop - hot dogs of course! Then off to our seats. WOWWWW is all we can say. THANK YOU to Agland Co-op for purchasing us field level sets at third base. We were literally at the Colorado Rockies dug out. We got to catch a couple of balls thrown from the players, and even got some autographs! We even got to see our name in lights! THANK you to our parents for the note on the light boards! We were very excited to see it! The game was great - the Braves won and we even got to see a home run. The night ended was a great fireworks show!

In all, a fantastic day for us!!