Tonight we're presenting to the School Board and the community about our season and how successful it was. We're going to tell about the losses and the brief successes that we had, and what the team, rookies and veterans alike, learned over the course of the year, even as far back as the Fourth of July a few members of the team had helped put on.
We definitely have some reflecting to do, look back and laugh at all the drama that went down, the secret meltdowns in the bathroom at competition to get away from the chaos and the noise humanity is so incredibly fabulous at putting together; moments of euphoria when we got a stack from our robot. Then there was the panic when something didn't work right a week before the bot was due to be bagged, or during competition when we were due to the field in like a few seconds. The season was boredom, hard work, yawning, laughing, bickering, smiling, building, succeeding, failing, stressing, letting go.
Truthfully, Robotics is only for the dedicated, the ones who go to basketball practice and then rush back buttoning their pants and pulling on boots to come and help get something done. It's for the kids who have nothing better to do on their weekends except do a bit of math and strike down a piece of metal and call it engineering. Robotics is where the bossy are welcomed and crazy is encouraged.
It cannot be called fun until you've gotten frustrated with whatever you're working on, yelled at a fellow team member, or hurt your brain for a few hours after school doing math or sitting through a programming session.
True, some robotics teams could be considered more dedicated than this one, when we all go to competition and see all the work they've done with FLL and other community projects. But look at our team: the kids rushing from practice sweaty and exhausted, knowing they've got a pile of homework already stacked waiting to keep them company until midnight, but coming along anyway; skipping lunches and reading periods when all they want to do is just...sit down and take a breather from thinking for a minute; homeschoolers braving the weather to come to the school and work on the bot; running back and forth between pep band and the robotics booth during home games to check on things, even the basketball players are checking on things during half time when they can.
Certainly, we could say we are more dedicated than the rest of the teams who get some much more done during a season, because we do so much more. There's already little free time to get this bot done for regular robot geeks, but for us we've got even less.
Ever crammed for an AP test as you're running between Mrs. Nichols' room and the Robotics room to search for parts, etc?
Gives you an idea.
We definitely have some reflecting to do, look back and laugh at all the drama that went down, the secret meltdowns in the bathroom at competition to get away from the chaos and the noise humanity is so incredibly fabulous at putting together; moments of euphoria when we got a stack from our robot. Then there was the panic when something didn't work right a week before the bot was due to be bagged, or during competition when we were due to the field in like a few seconds. The season was boredom, hard work, yawning, laughing, bickering, smiling, building, succeeding, failing, stressing, letting go.
Truthfully, Robotics is only for the dedicated, the ones who go to basketball practice and then rush back buttoning their pants and pulling on boots to come and help get something done. It's for the kids who have nothing better to do on their weekends except do a bit of math and strike down a piece of metal and call it engineering. Robotics is where the bossy are welcomed and crazy is encouraged.
It cannot be called fun until you've gotten frustrated with whatever you're working on, yelled at a fellow team member, or hurt your brain for a few hours after school doing math or sitting through a programming session.
True, some robotics teams could be considered more dedicated than this one, when we all go to competition and see all the work they've done with FLL and other community projects. But look at our team: the kids rushing from practice sweaty and exhausted, knowing they've got a pile of homework already stacked waiting to keep them company until midnight, but coming along anyway; skipping lunches and reading periods when all they want to do is just...sit down and take a breather from thinking for a minute; homeschoolers braving the weather to come to the school and work on the bot; running back and forth between pep band and the robotics booth during home games to check on things, even the basketball players are checking on things during half time when they can.
Certainly, we could say we are more dedicated than the rest of the teams who get some much more done during a season, because we do so much more. There's already little free time to get this bot done for regular robot geeks, but for us we've got even less.
Ever crammed for an AP test as you're running between Mrs. Nichols' room and the Robotics room to search for parts, etc?
Gives you an idea.