Robot Performance 1st Place

Wow! After a very long day that lasted 10 hours our Mindstorms Maniacs came away with the #1 Robot Performance Award. This award is based on the points your robot scores on the table runs. We had 3 chances to practice in the morning and 3 real runs in the afternoon. Our afternoon scores were 122, 155 and 153. That may not seem a lot out of the total possible 452, but this year's challenges didn't assign a very high point value for any one activity. I don't know how much higher we are compared to the other 45 groups we competed against. I'll wait for the final results on the Southern Colorado Qualifier site.

Yes, this is within regulation height!

The kids really had a good time and enjoyed showing off their robot. One of our attachments barely came under the 16 inches when attached to the robot so it was humungous! Kids got a kick out of seeing what it was capable of accomplishing.

Also during competition we found so much variation in the tables that it wasn't easy getting as high of a score as we did during our practices. The team knew it was pretty pointless to try any major re-programming of our robot during the day. They mostly practiced their hand offs and pulling off and putting on attachments.

The day went smoothly and the kids had a great time having to interact with other teams during the alliance rounds. Alliance rounds are when 2-3 teams pick their best missions that run consistently and try to combine to get the highest score during the 2.5 minutes. This really got our kids out of their shell in having to interact and really take a look at other people's robot build and strategy for solving the problem.

The crowd of parents and supporters.

The folks who organized this year's tournament did not disappoint. UCCS is a great facility to have this tournament in. Nothing was too far away and parking was free! Thanks to all the volunteers who put on this valuable event for our kids. They learned how to talk to judges on a very professional level explaining their projects and robot designs. They had to problem solve as a team on the spot and mostly they learned how to respond to high pressure situations with a lot of grace for one another and for other teams.

Our fearless MC.

We also qualified for the Colorado State Championships for the first time this year. It's free and open to the public, but you do have to pay for parking. It's on December 10th at DU. Come cheer us on if you are in the neighborhood. Here we go again!