Robot

This post was meant for yesterday, but I was far to tired to type anything that would have made sense.
So we went to the robotics competition bright and early, we set up the table display, which featured brilliant posters, and videos with some fantastic dramatic music thrown in for effect. Then we flipped through the little book to see when we would be going up for each section (you see there are 5 different sections to the competition, robot performance, oral presentation, engineering notebook, table display, and team spirit.)
As it turns out we were first up for oral presentation (the part that I worked on) so the group of us went in and did the best oral presentation known to man. Then two of the judges had questions for us. Russ took the one question and answered it brilliantly, you know your doing good when you impress the engineer. The third judge didn't even have a question, she just said that we managed to answer everything in the presentation. So we left the room all happy. I seriously cannot think of a better group of people for the oral presentation. They have no idea how much I was loving them right then, well I always do, but I particularly thrilled at that moment!
So we proceeded with the rest of the day, I mostly stayed at the table display to answer any questions that the judges had about its layout. I rather enjoyed being surrounded by the videos and photos that I designed, with the specially edited music in the background. So as the day came and went we had a few judges come by and we answered their questions.
Once all of the robot rounds had finished we discovered that we weren't in the semifinals for robot performance (Thanks to some faulty equipment, not the fault of any of our people), so naturally people started to look a bit defeated. But I figured that since Robot Performance is the smallest part points wise in overall we could still win this (The 6 teams going to Alabama are the top 3 for robot performance and top 3 overall.) I figured that we did well on Oral which was worth a good deal of points.
Well after 2 and a half hours of waiting for the judges to calculate points, at this point the play music for people to dance to, which is nice and all but at that point all we really care about is who won.
So after the music had stopped they decided to first announce the awards that don't have point values. We didn't take anything there but it didn't matter to us anyway. Then they announced spirit and sportsmanship, that does hold a point value, we came in 3rd if I'm not mistaken we were thrilled. Next was the Engineering notebook, we didn't place in the top 3, and thus the depression felt by some earlier came back, but then they began to announce the oral presentation awards, which happened to be one that I really cared about.
I was really hopping to place in the top 3 for it. They announced 3rd place, not us, so I figured ok, we got 2nd then, nope not so much, at this point I must be honest there was a shred of doubt in my mind that we may not place at all but then they announced 1st, Northeast high school, I've never been so happy in all of my life! It is always nice to see that something which you have worked countless hours on payed off.
Then came the awards for  Robot Performance (which we knew we weren't placing for see the above problem.) At this point many figured that we wouldn't be going to Alabama this year, but I still held out hope, after all you never know whose going to win overall. Then they announced it "The fourth team going to Alabama is Northeast High School" We were thrilled, we were all jumping up and down and cheering, we took the picture with the trophy and then waited to see who the other two teams would be, we were all hoping it was Baldi since they're brilliant at robotics and quite frankly just some of the nicest people you'd ever want to meet. And before you knew it, they announced Baldi came in 1st Overall, so naturally we started cheering for them too! So we packed up for the day all happy and cheering all the way back to the bus, but not before I "borrowed" the oral presentation trophy, I wasn't letting that baby go! Needless to say it is sitting on my desk as I write this, but don't worry I will bring it back in on Monday to put in the office =D
After we got back it was still early so the oral presentation team went to celebrate over at Ernie's. I gotta tell you it had to be one of the best days of my life. Now I just have to wait 31 days to be back in Alabama. Well that's all for now. Thanks for reading. Oh and posted below is a picture of the oral presentation trophy, just in case you didn't believe I smuggled it home lol.