On Deck

This weekend, we competed in San Diego along with a few other teams. We had a lot of fun and were glad that our grandparents and a friend of my father came to cheer us on.

My father was busy snapping pictures of us at any moment. Here's a last minute picture of us on deck before going up to compete. On deck is a row of whairs is where the teams wait to go to the playing field to compete. For some teams, this is an incredibly tense few moments as members of the team race between their other members and the computer, programming last minute changes and re-building parts. For other teams, it is a time to observe the approaches people take on the field, and review our strategies.

Being on deck is also a way for judges to observe your team. They watch to see if you are helping other teams, or are you trying to put them down. Are you calm about the upcoming match?  Or are you bickering with your teammates about who get's to pilot the robot. In fact, any little thing that you do is watched and scored either for or against you. The interesting thing, though, is that you might not know you're being watched. They have judges in normal clothes watching you from behind the scenes.

Even with all the pressure of the matches, we had a lot of fun and had some new experiences.

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