Nerds will rule the world one day

the game arena before the event stated

So yesterday we had the GREAT pleasure to take Brad to his first Robotics scrimmage.. the actual events that start to count (as far as points and moving on to regional and national meets) start in 2 weeks but this was an event designed to get all the teams a chance to take their robots out and see what they could do..For the most part it was FASCINATING!!! I mean REALLY FASCINATING>>>

So below I'll take you through what the nuts and bolts of First robotics competitions

So the object of the whole thing is to create a robot that can do a series of things hopefully in these pictures I can re-create what we saw and you can be as amazed as we were that high school students made all these amazing robots!

 So the first thing each robot is asked to do is move autonomously meaning WITH OUT anyone controlling it to forward and put an inflatable YELLOW tube on a row of pegs.. again this was AMAZING these robots were programmed to put these things up there.. some reminders this was the first time these robots had been tested in an official capacity so although we were totally blown away we really can't wait for 2 weeks to see the REAL competition and see these robots with all the bugs worked out...

So after the autonomous round the students can take the controls and then they need to get as many inflatable shapes on to the pegs the more they get one the more points they get..

they get DOUBLE points if they put the shapes in the same order as the First logo (only 2 teams did it all day)

1922 is Brad's team robot.. they had some trouble with their ARM (that can grab the shapes)so they were playing all defence, trying to prevent other teams from getting to the pegs or the inflatable shapes..

NH Senator Kelly Ayott

 

NH Governor John Lynch

The other neat thing about the event is it seemed to be a time for the GOVERNOR and one of the State Senators (later I wondered why SHE felt like she could miss that big budget vote in Washington yesterday but i digress) to come out and proclame what an amazing thing this whole event was (and it WAS) and how great would it be if all schools could have these programs etc. etc.. go education etc. etc. I dont want to deminish what they said it was great but it was a bit of grandstanding in my humble opinion..



Will-i-am at the FIRST kick off.. video is NOT imbeded go to the first link above to watch if you want..

 I started connecting all the dots as to WHY all the kick off stuff was done in Manchester NH and why on Earth such a famous singer would come to PO-DUNK NH (yep I said it)..to kick off this years festivities a few weeks ago..

The short reason is this guy..Dean Kamon he invented this  and lots of other things (see the link on his name to find other stuff).. he started the FIRST organization and he's from NH ie: the headquarters of First...

I have to say his little speach was very moving, he talked about his vision for this organization that engineers would team up with students in motivating their interestes in Math and Science.. and I have to say seeing all these kids in this gym all so excited and cheering when something they had a hand in making does something amazing was AMAZING!!!..
so thats what we did yesterday..
Brad had a great time.. Ben and I felt far and away out of our league as far as the intelligence levels in the room... we got a smart kid and YES we do believe Nerds will rule the world one day were at least glad one of them will be our kid...
tata