Today we went to another robotics competition in Rose Hill Elementary. Good news: We are first in the state in driver skills. Bad news: we didn't actually qualify for state championship. But, we did get the Build Award, which sadly does not qualify for anything. Still good. But, we didn't get awards or trophies. Just a piece of paper. While 838E got the excellence award (we would have gotten it if we didn't forget to bring it) and qualified for state championship just like that, we still had to find a way to get the excellence award.
Still, we got second in Driver Skills (the first place was middle school), and we were in the lead for about an hour. I wish we were the last people to go, so APEX wouldn't have gotten first. They beat us by about 10 points, basically if we scored 1 more ball, we would have tied first.
I feel like they really should separate middle school and elementary school because middle schoolers have more experience than us, and I like how RoboPlanet did it, how they seperated the elementary school and middle school. It wouldn't be fair if we competed with people with more experience. That is like 10-year olds playing soccer with 13 year olds!
There were a lot of robots at the convention. A good number of them were double-shooters, and they only could shoot 2 balls at a time, not 1. There were some robots that came from blaze, and I won't tell you about that. There were some custom flywheel robots, and they were not bad. But the robot that got first place was a robot similar to ours. It had a choo-choo mechanism catapult and an outtake. But the most interesting design was 838A's robot. It had a reverse Choo-choo???
Today I have a spelling bee at 6:00 at my school. I prepared for around 3 weeks, and I feel like I will be prepared. My friends told me that last year, people barely got to the 3 round, which is like 4th grade! I prepared all the way to seventh grade, and I feel like I will win. But there is a reason that all my friends said Nikolai would win the spelling bee. He said he is almost always in the 4th round, and I am very nervous that he will beat me. But, I still doubt that Nikolai really studied all the way to 7th grade, so I hope that he gets out in the 2nd round.
And this way, I can focus on saying the letters right. I sometimes have the right spelling, but I don't actually say the letters correctly. For example, whenever there is a -th,I pronounce -th instead of spelling t, h. That is kind of sad. Also, I am not the kind of person who can speak to hundreds of people. I have a fear of public speaking, and that is also not good. But, at least I will get 2nd place at least, because almost all my friends didn't prepare. I actually half expect them to die on the 3rd round. If not, the 4th. They are smart, so they will find a way.
I hate butterfly! It is too hard for me, and I only accept it if I have fins on. I cannot do it right, other people say stuff like "You are so bad at butterfly!" and "I am so much better!" to me, and I am SICK OF IT! I REALLY cannot take it! So, I feel like the only thing I need to practice is butterfly. First of all, I have no idea how other people get their body so high up in the air to have space for the arms. Second, apparently all of these people have been in a team for at least half a year, and I really think they are better.
There is only one person, Kai, who might be worse than me. He does freestyle as butterfly, but everything else is very good. Butterfly is my main weakness, and other people say they hate breaststroke. That is the easiest one! Just do it very slowly, and it will be easy! Plus, I don't like how the teacher always assumes that I am the worst one. It might be true, but I still don't like it!
Today I got 4th place in a chess tournament, much better than I actually thought. I won the first round and drew against my second game against the first place person, so I was off to a good start. Then, things started to go downhill from there. I lost my third game, and then I almost lost my 4th game again. Then, I won my fifth game, and all I had to do was win or draw the next game to get in top 5. And I did! I won, and I ended up in 4th place. With a trashy medal that represents my hard work. Honestly, all you need to do is get a better medal for everyone! Geez!
My third game started out well. I first won a pawn, and then I had the better opening. But, I made a blunder (I lost my knight due to a slight miscalculation) and I started to lose a bunch of pieces. Then I had no choice but to resign. Hey, even though dad told me to play to the end, I still tried, okay? And everything turned out okay!
My fourth game was the most memorable. I was losing in the end due to a pawn blunder, but I chose to keep playing on because I knew I would lose, and I had to at least try. So, I kept going, and I stopped his passed pawn, took one of his pawns, and drew the game. I feel like I made a great achievement because I didn't give up, and I was right! I didn't lose to him!
Today was the first day of a tournament in Florida, and it sucked. Our team only did one skills round, and we got 5 points with that. Also, our autonomous kept messing up, and our drivers (Eric and I) messed up. Well, maybe I messed up. I was intaking a ball, and then it just... got stuck! So, after the first day ended, we went to Eric's house to think of a solution. We came up with the idea of having the catapult high mode when intaking a ball so it doesn't get stuck, and then having it become low mode. Some good things about this:
The ball will not get stuck on one side of the robot forever, and it also won't get stuck in the intake and jam everything
The robot still will function the same as before, and everyone agreed it wasn't too hard for them.
Today we ran almost all of our skills. We got 73 in autonomous and 124 in driving. I messed up when I was rapid loading, and I will explain that tomorrow. But, our problem was teamwork. We were not in the top 13 for teamwork, so we were not qualified for excellence, innovate, or design awards. We needed a plan for tomorrow. But first, we needed to fix some problems on our intake. I made some high-quality arms in the front of the bot so the ball doesn't get stuck in the intake.
After that, we practiced driving (mostly me because I was the main driver) to get used to the controls, and then we moved on to what we would do tomorrow. Eric and I were supposed to look at matches to come up with teamwork ideas, while Grace and Bobby worked on different robot designs so we could base our robot off of their intake, for example, or their catapult.
Today I had yet another flight, and it was to Mexico. But, I will explain how I messed up in rapid loading before this.
Yesterday while I was rapid-loading, I messed up and I rolled the ball in too fast and too close together. That caused the robot's intake to jam, and also causing us to lose 8 seconds of time, enough for 4 more balls. After, my dad and I watched the replay that Eric's dad sent, and Eric's dad apparently told my dad to lecture me about team spirit, and how getting sad would hurt the team mentally.
Also, our team had the finals today, and since we were 17, we didn't get a good pairing. Our pairing was The Matrix, but they never aligned when passing, and our own drivers Booby and Eric messed up shooting, and they only scored the low goal, and they cleared only 3 switches. The only reason I didn't drive was because I drove for the last 2 qualifications, and I wanted to give Bobby a chance. But, I still participated by being loader.
Anyways. On the flight to Cancun, it was only an hour, but I forgot to use to restroom on the plane, so I rushed over to one ASAP after we landed. Also, the hotel is very fancy. It is next to a beach, and is also has 2 outdoor swimming pools! But, when we were about to go in, they closed.
Today I went to a public beach. It had no waterslides, and it was full of people. Dad drove right past the beach, so I was sure we were going somewhere else, but we turned back and went to the beach. I first handedly learned that the beach's sand is full of rocks, unlike our hotel's sand. Also, the waves were really big, and I learned that when I got washed to the shore after a giant wave crashed onto me. Then, I just sat on the sand and didn't do anything.
Today I went to a water park at Royal Sands. We ate a late lunch, and then headed straight there. When we got into the water, I was shivering cold! I wasn't used to it! But after a few rides, I was warm underwater. There were 2 main slides: The green one, and the blue one. The green one was a typical waterslide: open roof, fast. The blue one was a giant tunnel half of the way, and a normal one the other way. I felt like the blue one was more scary and exciting, while the green one was calmer. But, there were also several waterslides for little kids. The waterslides were still fun, and even a little more scary! There was one were it was guarenteed to get water in your nose, and it was tilted at a 45 degree angle! I don't think THAT one is safe, but the other ones are.