Marvelous Montgomery

Hello, world!

Every competition that I go to is better than the last! This weekend, my team and I went to the Montgomery district competition. Calling this weekend amazing would be a huge understatement!

The girls started packing on Thursday and finished on Friday. The drive to Montgomery was the longest yet, so the girls tried to get ready as quickly as possible after school. They piled into the cars and drove away, excited to see what the weekend had in store! Each car had fun singing, chatting, and joking around. The beginning of the evening was the same as usual. Everything was unloaded and set up. I got inspected, the girls found a spot in the stands, and everyone got acclimated to the competition. In between, the girls played FIRST trivia with each other, danced around, and laughed a lot. I wasn’t there for dinner, but the girls told me all about their adventures. They had pizza and birthday cake. Most of the cake was eaten, but some wound up on people’s faces. I’m just glad that I didn’t get any cake on me! After all of that, the girls brought me to the field to practice. My first two practice matches went pretty well! When they set me up for my third, something unexpected happened. The fire alarm went off, and the girls had to leave me. Don’t worry, everything was ok. I waited patiently inside while the girls waited outside. Eventually, they came back in and got ready to drive me. After that match, it was time to go home.

Saturday morning, the girls arrived, ready to get started! They got the robot ready, spoke to some judges, planned the scouting, and discussed strategy. At this competition, I saw a lot of robots that I had never seen before. We all worked together during each of my matches to achieve our goals. Sometimes, I would need to play defense. Other times, I would need to breach many defenses. For some matches, my focus was on scoring boulders. Because I never scaled at my first two competitions, my team really wanted to get my mechanism to work. Before one of my matches, they practiced multiple times. Then, the coolest thing ever happened! I scaled on the field! It took a lot of precision. I had to drive to the correct spot, my tape measure had to go out at the correct speed, and everything had to line up correctly. Luckily, it all worked out. My team screamed so loudly when it happened! I held onto the bar until my team came and lifted me off. I continued to work hard in all of my matches for the rest of the day. It was a very long day for my team, and they needed to go home and rest up.

Sunday was a fresh start. The girls were prepared to work hard every match. I continued to scale in some of my final qualification matches. By the time alliance selections arrived, my team knew that we had done the best we could. The team waited patiently in the stands to see if they would be chosen. Then, the 8th alliance captain, the Iron Mechs 5684, called our team name! The girls went crazy! After that, they waited with anticipation to see who the final member of the alliance would be. The alliance chose our friends from the Cybersonics 103, to join us! Immediately, the team began strategizing. The alliance went out the field with a plan to try and stop the other robots. Together, our alliance would breach, score, defend, and scale. Unfortunately, our team did not move on, but the alliance did an amazing job together! For the rest of the day, the girls danced, cheered, and sang in the stands together. They had so much fun! At the end of the day, the team was given the Creativity Award for their innovative designs and ideas. Everyone was so thrilled!

I’ve had an amazing year so far with my team. I know that no matter what happens, I’m the luckiest robot in the world because I have these girls. I’ll let you all know where our adventures lead us in the upcoming days and weeks!

XOXO
Lumos

P.S. Don’t worry! Annie’s competition video is coming soon. She’s working hard to make it the best it can be!