Today our team gathered up at Blaze to interview for US Open in Iowa. We were all really nervous because when we practiced, we always didn't have enough time to say all of the questions. Even though we made a lot of mistakes, though, we still answered all of the questions!! YEAH! That honestly was the biggest challenge to us, because we always said too much or had a major brain freeze. But, miraculously, we, finished with over 30 seconds to spare!! Yeah!
Me and Bobby also practiced driving teamwork. We always got over 100 points, but we got 95 with Aiden and once 82 because of a bad pass (by me!). Usually we got 160, but we got 173 twice. I think the biggest 2 improvements we could make are:
1.) Stick to just 1 main tactic, instead of doing stupid stuff like passing with the catapult or outtaking late
2.) Make sure you are aligned before you pass. I say this a lot to other teams, but I never do it myself. ;)
Today I will tell you the marvelous... errrr... marvels (heh heh) of the state championship. It was great. We got 1 award and qualified for World championship in Texas! Bad news? I go very sick and I didn't participate for one of the matches. Fortunately, we got 121 in that one (with excellent driving from AIDEN, my awesome teammate) and we also got a full 24 ball auton and a 27 ball driving! 620 points in skills put us in an enormous lead ahead of the 2nd place team, 838E (who got design award). We didn't do that great in the finals because I had 2 major failures that cost us a lot! we could have gotten 173 (which puts us in first) but, we only got 134 because of my mess-up. We didn't get anything less than 12 balls in practice! But, with a lucky double worlds qualification by Celestial (9595E, excellence and teamwork), we got to worlds!!!
My sickness was nausea and vomiting. The doctor at the urgent care we visited said we should go to the Seattle children's hospital to the emergency room!!! But, it got a lot better after a day of rest. But on the day of the tournament, I felt so bad I didn't even eat a crumbl cookie when they offered me one! I took a bite, and 30 minutes later I threw it all up. But, I still drove for all of the matches, and got pretty great scores, other than the last one. In that one, the loader for the other team would not load the ball through the loading station!!! That meant we had zero balls on the field at one point!! 56 points is great, right?
All the teams at state were really good. Most of them could score high and low, save for 1 team that got 38 points for skills. I'm not sure abaout that one. But, 338A got innovate award in vancouver with a robot that couldn't score high and low! But they didn't do well, either. Most robots were like Celestial: When they score high, one ball in their intake, one in their catapult. Immediately score low after scoring high. But, some were like our robot. Ex: 478J, 478Z, 838C, 938C, just to name a few that I know and saw.
Today I read a chapter of "Richer, Wiser, Happier" about a person called Mr. Templeton. Mr. Templeton is one of the most successful stock investors. Templeton liked to buy lots of underrated stocks (he once bought 800 shares for 100 dolla dolla!) when they go down, and watch them go right back up. Just like our team! But, Templeton believed in having a diversified portfolio, and not having too many stocks.
Personally I want to buy Meta because they just announced a new AI technology that can read your thoughts! This is new and exciting, but this could result to some surprised faces, and maybe it could be scary! But, I'm sure humans will be able to get used to it. When Meta is going down, I'm buying them!
On march 17, my mom made me start practicing the middle third of my piano piece. This took all the way to the 21, and now on that day, MOM TELLS ME TO DO THE FINAL THIRD! Like, I did it (eventually), but I didn't think that I would make it. So yesterday, I did like 2 hours of piano just to catch up. It was not fun. But, I did get to sneak some time on my computer! Don't tell mom!
I also had a math competition called MIC (math is cool), and my school got 7th place out of like 20 something teams. We even beat Basis! But, we only got 7th. Lots of space to improve. But, our team got the best individual rating in our division, along with the most College Bowl questions answered correctly in our school! But, our other team (Neev, Anika, Leslie) did not do great, which dragged us down, along with the 3rd grade team. So, if the judges scored by team instead of school, we could have gotten maybe 1st or 2nd.
Today I improved my new V5 robot. I made some code for the catapult (I mainly got the inspiration from the old code that I made earlier this year. So, after making that, I finished the outtake and the catapult. Plus, I got the PTO for the catapult and outtake to work and actually run! Also, I also figured out that our robot is ∑ (sigma)! To do this, just hold option and click W. That's weird, because our robot also has the dub!
W (winner) ∑ (sigma) L (loser)
Guess what? A broken pneumatic PTO on my robot is the real answer. When I got the pneumatics to finally extend, it was dinnertime. When I extend the piston multiple times in a row, the gear on the plate broke. To solve this problem, I just replaced the special pin with another special pin. Apparently, the pin I used was just not very grippy and the gear fell off. Then, I took everything near the PTO apart, which was mostly the overall framework of the robot just to replace a pin and a gear.
I also figured out how to make my frame wider. Since I could not use the beam way of making the intake, I used standoff connecters. But, I had to use one of those really long axles, and even that didn't reach all the way! So, I had to make the frame more narrow so I could even put the intake on! If I used a 2 by 16 or 18 instead with a 1.5 by 2 connecter piece, I will be able to make something similar to the beam way of making intakes. This way, my "X" intake will be long enough to fit in the long frame.
I will tell you about Gimkit. Gimkit is a game where you just play around! There are different game modes, and my favorite are Don't Look Down and Knockback. Don't Look Down is a game were you just keep jumping on different things, such as pumpkins, basketballs, and chairs. Knockback is a game where you try to shoot little balls that can knock people back, and you want to knock as many people out as possible. In both, you have to answer questions to get energy, and you use energy to jump, run, and shoot.
The best part about gimkit is that you can purchase different skins, such as Purple Pasta, Half full, and Cat+Dog. You can also get trails, like coins and fishbit, and also stickers like Game console and Potion. Every 5 minutes you play, you get 100 gim-coins.