competition

We have not uploaded any of the photos yet, but we have, in fact, come back from the Microsoft Seattle Regional mostly alive. It was wild and crazy, and like the announcer said, something of a "Cinderella story." Almost everything that could go wrong did, and we ended up walking off the field with medals. Pity? Fluke? Maybe I should recall the story...

We were working on "upgrade parts" before we got to the regional. We built new steering wheels, calibrated them, and built them in a way that allows us to mount them quickly. We also got a replacement gearbox with a wheel, just to switch out one of the wheels.

Here we are at the competition! We arrived early this morning and started unpacking our robot and fixing the wheels. The practice matches of the competition are about to begin! OMg. We are very pleased to have wireless internet, courtesy of the SSID gtctc so we can update our site in real time. (We also have Rubik's cubes.)

Just a few short days, and Spring will be upon us, along with the Microsoft Seattle Regional! Everyone's looking forward to it, and we've managed to probably more than double our attendance rate from last year, which might make us seem less like a joke and more like serious business.

I spent a while organizing all our stuff (other people helped sort bolts, metal, spacers, and terminals) only to put most of it in boxes that we're bringing to the competition. Oh well, at least everything is organized, right? Speaking of organization, Saints Robotics is going to re-organize for next year. The current structure we have is pretty good, but it's very difficult to get everyone organized all at once.

Team members pose with their new shirts.

We recently got our order of shirts, just in time for the competition.

Meanwhile, at the meetings, we are making final preparations for the competition-packing parts, organizing nuts and bolts, getting paperwork done. We've also made replacement steering wheels just in case ours break.

Six more days until the Microsoft Seattle Regional! We'll see you there!