Hi,

Our 3 robotics teams competed in a blended (elementary and middle school) tournament at St. Louis on Saturday 10/11. They did well, even with several stressful incidents/obstacles:

- 77278N didn't pass size inspection. This is VERY stressful. Imagine a UFC fighter failing a weigh-in minutes before a fight, and having to make decisions about what part of your body you can cut off and still do what you've trained to do. That's essentially what happened with this team. They had to cut a quarter inch horizontally, and a half inch lengthwise in order to pass. Isaac and his team kept their cool and made hard decisions, and managed to pass.

- 77278N also had a problem with their robot tilting at one point. Which students tried to make repairs when they didn't have enough time between matches. The other team was already on the field, and we were on the verge of being disqualified, when the team essentially "slapped things together" and went out onto the field. Within 5 seconds of the start of the match, the robot fell apart, and the drivers essentially spent the entirety of the match struggling to repair their robot. There was a lot of frustration, and some tears were shed... but the good news was that they reassessed and did the necessary repairs, and were ready for the next match.

There was some concerns about scoring.  At these events, no adult (coach) can intervene and question decisions; they are very big on student self-advocacy. The score is only shown to the students at the match, and they have to agree or disagree to that score in that moment. Once they agree to the score, it's finalized. So our students had to at times step up for themselves.

- Ultimately: 77278A came in 7th, 77278S came in 10th, and 77278N came in 14th, out of 21 teams present.

This is often how the season starts, especially since we have a lot of new students. It's a great motivator to everyone to see the level of competition out there. We will do a post mortem and reassess, shuffle things around, re-strategize, rebuild, and come back stronger for our next tournament.

If you have a robotics student in your classes, please congratulate them on a good showing.

~ Mr. Otaka