FIRST World Championships Day #2 4-29-13

Day 2, being Thursday the 25th dawned bright and early with a view of "the arch" at our hotel! We walked over to the dome and the craziness began. During the month between Peachtree Regional and champs we we tried to get better accuracy on our shooter by adding an encoder which would make our shooting accuracy sky rocket, and so that we were able to shoot full court frisbees into the 3 point goal and not into the 2 point goal. After a day of testing the device broke and we replaced it with a photo sensor that used light to test the rpms of the spinning shooter wheel. All day on Thursday we battled problems after problem with the code that was not keeping the rpms of the shooter wheel. We only had one practice match and the rest were qualifications (aka the matches that mattered). We had our ups and downs. Our most major upset was that of beating 2056 one of the biggest name brand teams with a score of 122-134 in our favor. At the end of the entire competition 2056 had lost 1 of their 8 matches. We were the ones who had upset their winning streak! Definitely a moment of proudness for our team especially since we weren't doing as well as we wanted.  It was terrific to be able to be with all of the other teams from all over the world. The atmosphere was constantly charged with excitement and sudden bouts of team spirit. My one pet peeve at this competition and the last for that matter were the people who would scream "ROBOT" in your ear every time they passed you on the way to a field. Just say move! Don't scream it in my ear!

After the long day of matches the team headed to a pizza place who had the logo pi as it's sign. A perfect place to put a bunch of starving robotics kids! The pizza was a bit weird. When we ordered we were under the impression we were getting standard pizza and not a deep dish pizza. Consequently we ended up with a couple of pizzas that completely lacked cheese. You could tell we were NOT food connosoireurs!  That night was filled with TV watching, chilling in other people's rooms, and lots of sleeping, and even more eating. If I do say so myself it was a long day and being able to kick back and relax, no matter how dirty the room was. Trust me, the carpet looked like it was growing food instead of the food being dropped on the floor. Needless to say we were all a closer team after these late night hang out sessions!