Checksum Arcanius

I am returned home, all in one piece, and with still a decent chance of passing my classes (I think). The combat robotics trip was enlightening and fun, and my big brother is all graduamated from college, making me the only member of my immediately family who cannot (yet) claim a bachelor’s degree. Interestingly, the ceremonies at BYU were absent of tradition: no tassel flip, no hat throwing, no wild celebration. It all seemed very utilitarian, as much as a ceremony can be that way. I got to see Bradford again, and we had a good time seeing Hidalgo and then playing Starcraft until 4 am (we won!). After eating some barbeque with the Sullivans, I was dropped off at the airport and flew to John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California. There, I was picked up by Larry, and we made our way to the hotel, a very nice, new hotel just a block or two from both the Anaheim convention center (where the RC Exhibition was) and Disneyland (to which I�ve never been; this is the closest I have come). The interesting thing about this hotel is that while it was overall quite nice, it had the most bizarre accents in the form of drain pipes sticking out of the walls occasionally. Also, the ice machine room was extraordinarily warm. After Phaw, the combat robot that was Tim�s senior project went 2-3 in competition (the match I drove, we won, and the first two matches the drivetrain wasn�t working well [but we won one of those matches anyway]). The club was also interviewed by some tv camera and reporter lady. However, the most interesting thing about the competition for me was to compare it to a FIRST event. FIRST regionals are many times better organized and ran � perhaps up to 10 times better in presentation and organization, and having its own venue as opposed to sharing with another event. However, the entrance fee to this competition was $150, and the entrance fee to a FIRST event is $4000, well more than 10x more. It got me to thinking about where does all that money go? Even at a small regional with just 36 teams (like the PNW regional), that�s nearly $150,000 brought in. At the nationals, the budget is 1.2 million dollars from entrance fees alone. Yet FIRST says that only covers about half the cost of putting on the event. So I�m wondering, how can it really cost that much? I talked with Larry about it, and from that conversation it seems to be that there is a lot of waste going on between FIRST and the final production. I�d like some hard figures to know for sure, though. Let me know if you have any.

Today’s big news is that a freak storm came through, downing trees, spreading hail, lighting, thunder, and strong winds, and generally causing all sorts of chaos. The traffic lights just outside of work were even off, although at microvision, the lights did nothing more than flicker once.

like work will actually go back to normal levels soon, so I won’t actually hae to spend every day after school there. Now if I could only get myself to do my homework, I might be in a prett good position. Today, I actually managed to do some useful stuff in the kitchen before I feel back into getting nothing done. As I said in an IM to a friend, I’m not very good at the “Work” part of Schoolwork.

In other news, Kelly is not dead – I saw her today between tennis and math, but I was talking with my polish friend who likes to talk so she can improve her english, so I didn’t even have to consider approaching her. She still looks good. And thats that, I guess.

Right now, I’m headed to Utah, using the internet at the incredible rate of 9.6 kbps! Its good enough for this, at least, as well as IM and text-based email, so I’m heppy. Its still pretty amazing one can get internet at all hurtling down the road like this…

I’m headed to Utah because my brother is graduating from BYU tomorrow. But it gets more excting than that, becaus Friday night I’m flying to Anaheim for Steel conflict. Sunday I return home and my life returns to some semblance of reality, except that I’m on my own in a huge house for three weeks, which will be kinda wierd in and of itself.

I seem to have left my glasses in Atlanta, I’m going to have to call the hotel to find out for sure and hopefully have them shipped to me.

Recently, I have created a stir on the Chief Delphi forums, the de-facto meeting place online for FIRST teams. If you want to see me being inflamatory, head on over there and search for threads that include the number 492. I also have some legitimate posts, which have had the unintended consequence of making my reputation (which was at one point the second lowest on the board) positive instead of negative. Oh well, I can’t win all the battles.

“Your application is awaiting a preliminary review, at which time we will determine whether all required documents have arrived, if these documents are current, and if all other required materials are on file.”

That is what I have seen since I submitted my application to the UW over 8 weeks ago. Hmmm…

Tomorrow, life goes back to normal for an entire two days. Then on Wednesday, we’re off to Utah for my brother’s graduation. Then I’m headed to Cali for Steel Conflict, then I’m back home and trying to pull the remnants of my school quarter back together.

For all of how good Far Cry’s AI is, it is still pretty easy to fool. And the inability to fight in water is pretty dumb. Oh, and so are the mysterious appearing-from-nowhere helicopters if you wander out of the “open range” game’s range.

I’m going to try to stay on this earlier schedule I got onto due to being three hours ahead, but I’m already letting it slip – I slept a lot in the plane and airports today, and listened to the ipod most of the day. I was impressed with its battery life today. On the other hand, my laptop’s battery seems to be fried – either that, or windows is acting up and hibernating prematurely (it does fail to give me the warning first for some reason, like somehow it misses the 10% mark and goes straight to the 4% mark.

Thats all for tonight, unless I get crazy and decide to post again.

Well, the TRC didn’t win in Atlanta… They didn’t win anything in fact, making this the first event out of eight that the TRC has not won an award at. So the streak comes to an end… which is a bitter pill to swallow. That was one of my favorite statistics to quote about the club.

On the other hand, a new era may be starting for the club – more people are interested, and for the first time since the first year, it looks like girls are going to be in the club leadership. And more people seem to be catching the idea that very cool thing can be done with the club. I hope the momentum stays up.

I’m currently in Salt Lake City, having accepted a $400 voucher to change flights. AndI’m about to board, so I’m outta here!

After a rocky start going 1-2, the TRC won three games in a row, pulling themselves from the pits into the spotlight with three excellent matches. The reasons for the turnaround are numerous; the most important is pure luck: Our first three matches were with robots that could do precious little (which at this level is rare). Our next three partners were each capable hangers, and we routed our opponents in each of those matches with scores of 150, 150, and 110. One of these matches was with the current umber one seed, and we hope we caught their eye. We think with us and one more hanger, we could go far in the finals, just like in the pacific northwest regional.

Catch the webcast on Saturday from http://robotics.nasa.gov. We could very well be in the finals and perhaps even the next national champions.

;-)

Today, we met at Sea-Tac at Nine, got everyone checked in around Ten, made it though security by 11:00, and arrived in Atlanta around 7:15. We all made it to the Hotel by using the MARTA, which was extremely easy. Most of the kids went to McDonalds to eat, the “Adults” (except for Bobby and I) went to other, more expensive, better food places. I figure there will be plenty of time for expensive food tomorrow (er, later today if you’re in Atlanta) when we are traveling the city.

So far, Atlanta has impressed me. The people are generally nice, the panhandlers are gentle, and the hotel, though getting old, is well maintained and clean. And getting free internet from the much nicer hotel a half mile away through the window is nice too. Thank goodness for high power WLAN cards and directional antennas.

Tomorrow we tour the city, the center of commerce in the south. Then the competition begins. With 295 teams, the pits are a ten minute walk away from the playing fields. It will be intense, and I still have to finish my scouting program.