mock competition

the oregon trail isn't complete without a covered wagon :o)

i went over to simmons at 1pm to attach sensors to our robot, test the ball shooter, and eat more cookies. then emily and i ran to lab at 5pm to give our robot a little test drive on the game board before the competition (which started at 7pm). here's a video of our robot in action -- it worked amazingly well for the camera --

16 teams participated in the mock contest, and our goal was just to make it to the second round. there were 8 matches in round one, and 6 matches ended in a double loss (no team scored a point). we went up against team 01, and while our robot did not do exactly what we wanted it to do, we did manage to score two points. the robot didn't drive straight, so our shooter did not point to the scoring bin. instead, it shot balls at the wall, and one of them ricocheted into our two point bin. it was freaking AMAZING. unfortunately, we didn't get it on camera, but we did make it to the 2nd round!

only one other team scored any points (and their robot worked way better than ours did) so the second round was also the final round. we matched up against team 08 in a best of three match. in the first match, our robot turned the wrong direction and instead ran into the wall, and so we got to stand and watch the other team score on us. we thought our robot had finished its course, but it hadn't, and after about 40 seconds, it started firing the balls at emily. it was really really really funny. we didn't get that part on camera, but here is what we did get of the first match --

team 05=0, team 08=1

in the second match, our robot didn't drive straight, and it fired at our opponent's robot instead of our four point bin. their robot didn't work, so this match ended in a double loss.

team 05=0, team 08=1

in the third match, our robot did what we wanted it to do. unfortunately, since the other team had a similar strategy, our balls got blocked by their robot. we blocked all of their shots to their four point bin as well, but their strategy included depositing a ball in their two point bin as well, which meant that they won. so sad. :o(

team 05=0, team 08=2

even though we didn't win the competition or the laptops, we were REALLY REALLY HAPPY with how our robot did, especially since we are a team of two biologists and a chemist. to celebrate, our team (cindy came and joined us) and team 07 went to chipotle for dinner!

the reaction after hearing the fatty fatty 2X4 poem :oP

after chipotle, we went to TOSCIS which has REOPENED!!!! i am superduper excited about that. :D

cindy, kelly, jake, and emily with TOSCIs! :D

we went back to mccormick and watched about 4 more episodes of antm, and then called it a night. what an excellent day. :D

gene simmons is my daddy

rock band at chris&emilys

i finally got good results for my western blot today!!! unfortunately, it meant a lot more additional testing, so i ended up leaving work around 6:15 and then went back to work at around 10:30. :( its funny how success = more work and failure = no work. i will have to go back into work tomorrow (saturday) as well.

c&e spent the day working on the robot in simmons, snacking on cookies, and watching this video from last night's episode of ugly betty. last night, emily gave me a 10 min synopsis of ugly betty, and it sounds kind of complicated, but she loves the show, so it must be good. :)

because i didn't see the robot today, i have no idea how much progress was made. i guess i'll find out tomorrow!

yum yum yum! COOOOOKIES :D

JT and his donut cookie

cindy and emily spent the day rebuilding the robot while i spent the day eating. i went to henrietta's table for lunch with my group, goodbye party for aileen, and goodbye party for amy tapper (so i snagged a bit of free food at that party, i didn't actually work for her). :)

c & e mounted the ball shooter onto the frame of our robot while i was at work, and it looks amazing. cindy did an awesome awesome job designing the ramp, and emily was brilliant and figured out how to attach the actual shooter. i can't wait to see it in action!

jeremy, emily hung, JT, and petek delivered cookies to us tonight! :D apparently they spent the afternoon baking four batches of cookies. in the words of rachael ray, they were deeeeeelishh. :) yay friendlyfriends! :D

as midnight hit, emily said that we needed to sing a round of "that's amore". so we spent the next hour playing karaoke revolution. two of us would sing, and one would build/code. here's a short video of what our robot can do now (with a little bit of help from cindy):

total demolition

we got assignment 4 checked off in lab today.

then we destroyed the robot.

it was really sad.

(we destroyed the robot in attempts to attach the ball shooter. it was a frustrating night.)

youtube videos of the day: human tetris and sport acrobatics

domo arigato, mr roboto

I SCORED A LAPTOP AT WORK TODAY! thank YOU erick moy for hooking me up with the IT guys. i also took over the empty cube behind sean's (my supervisor) desk. it only took an entire summer and 2 weeks for me to acquire a desk and a computer at work. :D

due to emily's amazingness, our robot can now drive straight!!! i'm not sure how she did it (she said something about lowering the tolerance) but i am thoroughly impressed. :)

our robot also has a new theme song. if emily or cindy could program our happyboard to sing this, it would make me really really really happy. :D

cindy programmed our robot to figure out its location and orientation based on what the home squares look like (the task for assignment 4). however, the lcd screen spits out numbers and the robot doesn't really move, so it makes for a boring video. sorry.

i attempted to attach the ball shooter and ramp tonight, and totally failed. try#2 happens tomorrow.

team 05 love

after getting crap for failing to locate a hot glue gun on a shelf about 4 inches above eye level:
"i'm so used to hanging around you guys that i don't remember to look up anymore"
- emily (5'7") to cindy (5'1") and daphne (5'2")

and another random quote:

"if we win, i will do the faux-hawk"
- daphne wang
1/19/2008 11:02pm

"i'm not an ambiturner, i can't turn left"

sleep is glorious.

mlk day = no work! i got to sleep in for the first time in 2 weeks. we decided to meet at 11am at lab, and i rolled out of bed at 10:45. GLORIOUS. :D

unfortunately, the 6.270 organizers also took the time to sleep in, because the doors were locked when we showed up at lab. greg finally showed up at noon and let us into lab.

apparently we fried a chip in our board when the battery wires came off. greg handed us a new happyboard that had parts that were soldered by the ta's, meaning that they probably did a better job than we did. he also sent out an email because of us --

• Some teams have been having trouble with the flimsy battery connector coming off (sometimes shorting the board in the process). You may wish to hot glue the connectors to give them a little more structural support. Greg

emily and i took a look at the game board and decided that instead building a ramp, we would use the ball shooter. we spent a good 10 minutes throwing the game balls into the bins, and at the end of that, we decided that it would be better to roll the balls through the slots instead of shooting the balls over the wall into the bins.

we trekked to thailand cafe at 4pm for lunch, and afterwards, went our separate ways. emily had a prestudy meeting, i had practice (which i skipped in order to sleep some more), and cindy wanted to get her life back in order (aka fold the laundry that she finally washed). we reconvened at around 10pm and worked. or at least tried to.

emily had been trying to get our robot to drive straight using shaft encoding. here are the results of tonight's efforts --