Let me just warn you first, Regional went a lot better than State. At 8:00 there was an opening ceremony, where all of the referees danced. At 8:30 we had project judging. We started off with our skit, which we have worked very hard on throughout the year. It went pretty good, if you ignore the fact that we might have slipped up on names, such as Kevin and Devin instead of Stacey and Tracey. When it came to questions, there were some curve balls. I’m pretty sure we did well with answering them, though. Then, at 9:05, came our first Robot Run. Apparently, we had plugged the cords into the wrong ports. Nothing was going right. Finally we got it together, with 20 seconds left on the clock. For that run we got a total of 65 points. It was very disappointing but we kept telling ourselves that we still had 2 more tries. We went to Technical Judging where, at least in my opinion, went very well. We remembered everything we were going to say and even had a little time at the end where neither the judges nor us had anything to ask/show.
Next, was our second Robot Run. This did not go very well, either. The robot missed most of the missions and we didn’t have time for the bowling, small TV, and ramp, which is one of our big pointer missions. We received a total of 100 points. We, then, went to Core Values. We accomplished the “secret activity,” while working as a team. I thought we were “amazing!” but obviously the judges probably didn’t think so. (We learned this after seeing the judging sheets later.) Our best Robot Run was our third. Even though it was only 260 (we were able to get a consistent 380 or so at practice).
Since we had a two hour break, we watched The Imaginative Orange Pi Guys’ Technical Judging. It was interesting seeing designs other than ours. It reminded me of the time when we were all technical judges, ourselves, which was rather exciting. We headed off for lunch. There were subway sandwiches, cookies, muffins, chips, puff corn, and much more. When we heard that we would have to go against The Cavemen for our first Head to Head round, we knew we were in for it. We lost by 80 points, with 110. Their robot literally split apart, but they still won with 190.
We got called back for Project research, which was unfortunate because one of our team members had gotten “sick” during lunch. That meant we didn’t have an Evil Doctor Scientist. How can you do a good skit without Dr. Hadafall? To make matters worse, “this certain team member” isn’t an easy one to replace. We came upon having Sabriyah as our replacement. I got a laugh out of her throwing the lab coat off to run over and be our Grandma. At least the judges were focused on the amount of research we did instead of our acting abilities.
A little after 6:00 was the awarding ceremony. It was a little disappointing not hearing our name at all. If you need me to break it down, we didn’t win a thing. The Gamemakers won a couple awards, The Imaginitive Orange Pi Guys won an award for team spirit (they even did their cheer for everybody), and Height Differential is going to California! It was exciting cheering on our friends. You have to keep in mind that… It’s not what you win it’s what you learn!
Afterwards, most of us went to “Davanni’s” to celebrate. We got a little goofy (if you’d want to call it that). Most of our conversations were based off of two things. Middle names and Whale Trails, a wonderful game for children ages three and up. If I may say so, this was one of the best days of my life (although that sounds a little corny).
“What did you learn from our interesting experience at State?”
Rose: “Make sure your robot is completely ready and prepared before the first run. In fact, just to be safe, check it the night before, too.”
Meghan: “To make sure that you know every detail of your product before you try to
explain it.”
Nancy: “Don’t expect things to work (then you won’t be as disappointed if they fail).”
Sabriyah: “Make sure to have good team spirit in the end because being a team is more important than what we win.”
Amy: “I learned to wash your hands a lot and keep super healthy so you don’t get sick.”
Emily: “Being with people is important for our learning experience. We can reflect off of each others mistakes and improve our personal lives.”
Wow, you really have writing skills! If you don’t become a professional writer, I will be entirely surprised! I am constantly voting for you!
GMA
i love ammy’s comment on what they learned and it was cool to hear what all went down at state
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