Last year the kids' school began an VEX IQ elementary robotics team. There were (and still are) no other elementary robotics teams anywhere near our town, so the kids just built and practiced with the robots but did not enter any official competitions. This year the coaches decided to take the program to the next level by registering for a few competitions in the Atlanta area. The first competition was last weekend. Olivia and her partner competed in the "alliance" portion of the event. This duo was paired with teams from other schools to work together and score as many points as they could in a sixty-second time frame. Olivia drove the robot for the first thirty seconds. Her job was to knock down the four hex balls with the robot. She would then pass the controller to her partner who would try to park the robot on the bridge. There are other things that you can do to score points, but knocking off the balls and parking on the bridge was our team's strategy. Olivia and her partner ended up finishing 26th out of 40 elementary and middle school teams. That's not too bad for their very first competition.
Since the competition was in Atlanta, we decided to stay an extra night with Cassie and James (Nick was out of town). I'm so glad that Cassie lives nearby. I accidentally flushed my keys down the toilet and had to have my car towed to the Honda place to have a new key programmed. What a mess! Cassie came to the competition and then took my kids home with her while I sorted out the key fiasco. She was a real life-saver. Once the key situation was taken care of we all went out to eat at Longhorn and then spent the evening loving on my favorite nephew. Sweet baby James sugar is just what was needed after a long day.
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