Days 61-63 in 2023

Robotics competitions in the Michigan division of FIRST Robotics take place from Thursday night (move in) through full days of competing on both Friday and Saturday. This weekend marked my first experience mentoring Calvin's team over a competition weekend. The experience was complicated by a major snow storm that hit the area midway through the first day of matches (Friday), shortening the day and sending us all out into a white-out to find hastily procured hotel rooms nearer than the hour drive to home. The hotel night with the kids was fun, and the 16-hour long day on Saturday to make up for it wasn't as bad as it sounds.

There was a lot I didn't know about the competitions themselves. I went to one of them last year, but wans't a mentor, so I was merely a visitor. This year I got to see how much more actually happens aside from the robots on the field. There are interviews with jduges, and learning from or teaching other teams; there's tweaking the robot, or the code, then testing and practicing and testing again; and there's strategizing, strategizing, and more strategizing. And all of it is impressive.

Overall I loved the experience. Calvin has worked on the programming and vision programming teams throughout the last two months of devleopment, and is a driver on the four person Drive Team for competitions, making him one of the two people responsible for controling the robot on the field every match. It's a stressful job that he handled with grace and poise throughout the long weekend. I was, of course, incredibly proud of him, and of all the kids on this team for the amazing things they are doing.