Lots of energy at this week's robotics contests. This is my "little" assistant Lizzie. Many years ago, she started out as a score runner and then a table re-setter and then a timer. She's finally gotten old enough to become an official referee (she's a senior in high school). I hope she goes to college some place near by so we can continue to work together. It's tough working with "rookies."
This week they threw in an additional sudden-death contest called the
Blind Pirate Challenge. It's really just a time-killer while the judges tally up the scores. But talk about chaotic. They put 2 robots on the same playing field and gave them 4 minute rounds with no touch penalties. The robots pretty much go wild, because there's hardly enough room for one to maneuver around, let alone two. As a ref, I feel like my head is spinning completely around trying to keep track of everything that is going on. Consequently, the fields get pretty destroyed, since the robots run right over the models tearing away the Velcro that is supposed to hold them in place. This field got so torn up that the head ref had to climb up onto the table to put the model back together. Crazy.
