We’re back from the Conference, and mostly back to our normal routines. So I guess the question is, how did it go? That’s a tough question to answer, so I’ll give you the bad first and then the good.
First the bad – the robotics competition. To say the least, things didn’t go so well. To preface the competition, first I have to say that the week leading up to it was probably the most problem-riddled week we’ve had this entire year. Just about everything that could go wrong in the days leading up to the conference did. I won’t go into too many details, but I will say that so many things went wrong that we had to ditch the trailer idea altogether and completely scrap our strategy for picking up the blocks. Of course, this made our design kind of stupid because the whole reason we had this big six d.o.f. arm was to have the dexterity to lift a block and place it into a specific place in the trailer, so in the new design it actually became more of a hindrance than a boon. Add on top of this that Caleb’s laptop, on which all of our code was stored, died the afternoon before we planned on leaving for Lubbock. Luckily I had made a backup of what we had the day before, but everything we worked on Tuesday night and all day Wednesday was lost. Basically, things didn’t go well.
When we finally did get to Lubbock, we scrambled to do the best with what we had, and gave it our best effort. We spent most of the day Friday sitting in the exhibit hall at a table coding and practicing, trying to squeeze as much as we could out of our new ad-hoc design. Finally, late Friday night, they shut the lights out on us and we decided that what we had would have to do. Now, I wasn’t at the competition on Saturday because I had to attend the Student Paper competition (more on that in a moment), so I’m going off of what was relayed to me from my teammates. Apparently for our first run, we were actually somewhat presentable. The robot approached the first two corners and almost lifted the blocks to get them back to the center, and then attempted the second two corners without much success. This doesn’t sound like much, but was a surprisingly robust run compared to many of the robots there. Lots of people were having issues. After this they had some technical issues with the arm, and so the second run didn’t go as well. We didn’t do well enough to get us into the finals, but I still feel we did respectably and I’ll keep my head high. We might not have accomplished what we set out to accomplish, but I’m proud of my teammates and all of the work that we all put into this thing through the year.
Now for the good. As I said earlier and as I’ve mentioned a few times on this blog, my paper was also submitted to the Region 5 Student Paper competition, along with another classmate. We were competing with 10 other student papers from schools all over the state and country, so there was some stiff competition. The written section of the competition (the paper itself) had already been submitted and graded by the judges by the time we arrived in Lubbock, and we actually got our scores and comments from them back before anyone presented. On Saturday we had the Oral Presentation section of the competition, where we present the key ideas of our papers to the same judges in a speech and powerpoint presentation. They ordered us by lot, and I somehow drew first, so I had nothing to compare myself to going into my presentation. Looking back on it, this probably a good thing, because if I’d seen some of the other presentations before I gave mine I likely would have been extremely intimidated. Mine went well, but most of the other students had really spectacular presentations. Frankly, I wasn’t expecting much, and had already picked the three winners in my mind (myself not among them) by the end of the day.
It came as a huge shock to me that night when, at the banquet, they called my name as one of the three winners of the competition. And when I say I was shocked, I’m not exaggerating. I was blown away that the judges apparently found my paper and presentation good enough to be considered one of the top three there. After what I’d seen from the other students, it was hard to believe that they picked me, but there I stood. I ended up taking second place, which I was more than happy with. The guy that won first place had a truly incredible presentation and certainly deserved it, so I was happy for him and glad I was given the opportunity to be in such company.
In the end, it was a long weekend of frustration and disappointment, but at the same time a fun weekend of fellowship and triumph. The two sides went hand in hand, much like college, and much like life. It was a fitting end to our college careers, and today it feels like a page has been turned. We aren’t entirely done yet, but for the most part all that’s left is walk across the stage. That day will come soon enough.
And now, some pictures!
