2017 Week 17: Worlds and sooooo much more!

I like to open each week with flowers. This time I couldn't resist borrowing Leah's photos of our little flower princess.

"Hair by Nature and Nana"

I am really enjoying the fields of yellow, almost hate to see them mowed away. No worries, the abundant rain has made mowing difficult. The bees also appreciate the delay.

New spring growth

Monday before the meal, we surveyed the two new buildings in progress. Stephan's Christmas gift to Karen was a writing cabin in the woods. He is still working on it and also setting up his work area for milling and assembling materials for their future timber frame house.

Tuesday early morning was Kristie's long-awaited surgery. She had suffered from a rare and painful condition for years. What the surgeon found proved the timeliness of the procedure. They were able to cut away all that was encasing the celiac artery and restricting the flow of blood (MALS). We are so grateful for a successful outcome.

The healing and pain control will take time, but so far the progress is on schedule. 

Many have stepped up to help with food and child care, and especially love and prayer. 

The other huge event of the week was the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) World Championship. Mike and the team traveled to St. Louis on Wednesday. (I left the next day with three others.)

The night I was alone, severe storms raged here, The power was out for a couple hours and trees blew down in our woods.

Our car load arrived in time for a couple qualifying matches and the opening ceremonies, one of the few times Michael could join me in the stands. 

Opening ceremnoy

These were very intense days for mentor/coach Mike and the drive team. When they were not on the field competing, they were back in the pit trying to fix the most recent malfunction or on the practice field testing the latest improvement.

Some of us were able to get away between matches to visit the famous Arch. I learned that it is the tallest monument in America! Do you know how high it is and what it conmemorates?

I watched the documentary and studied the wall depicting the construction of this amazing memorial.

Another fascinating attraction we visited Friday evening was the City Museum, an undescribably crazy place.

The multilevel eclectic playground/fun house was crowded with young people, robotics teams from all over. . . . and a few older folks like us.

But you probably want to know how our team fared at that level of competition. I will say that our wonderful robot did not perform as it had on its home field and suffered many setbacks. We did not make it to alliance selection like the last time two years ago, but we were the third pick of the team that has won several championships. Read more in this press release Muncie Robotics Team Competes in World Championships. You may also want to be reminded of our trip to Worlds two years ago, go here.

Meanwhile back in Indiana other important events were taking place.

Malachi and Lexi's senior prom

We traveled back Sunday and were just in time for Kayla's many dance students' recital. She danced with the adult tap class, led the younger classes either from on stage or from the front row, and acted with the Annie's themed musical theatre group's performance. Very impressive program!

Needless to say, we've been exhausted ever since, trying to catch up on sleep and chores, and now I am fighting a cold.

2015 Week 17: Off to St. Louis

This week was consumed with either preparing for or intensely living the 2015 FIRST World Championship.

Monday, when the parents and mentors met there was an exciting reveal--all the money was in for the trip!

Tuesday they put decals on the trailer and packed all the equipment.

Wednesday very early we boarded the LightRider double decker bus. The plan, as we traveled in the bus each day, was to have Mike share reflections on life. His first talk was titled "Breaking the Mold" about how his own ambitions to become an astronautical engineer took a different direction when challenged by college chapel speakers from Operation Mobilization.

We arrived safely shortly after noon and had a tour of the St. Louis Christian College where we stayed for three nights.

The event was held in the Edward Jones Dome, an enormous stadium set up with eight playing fields for simultaneous qualification matches. Our team played in Newton.

In this aerial view of St. Louis (borrowed from Google images) you can see the dome on the middle left and next to it an L-shape building, the America's Center, where the 600+ pits were set up.

The drive team and pit crew had a busy afternoon: unpack the trailer and set up the pit; make adjustments and add the improvements to the robot; have it inspected. If possible they would have opportunity to test the robot on the practice field before their one practice match on the Newton field. As it turned out the line was too long so they were unable to test the robot.

"Not Yet" and the ME and lead mentor; PhyXTGears pit (above right); judges talking to the drive team (below right)

Robot "guts"

The complexity of the inner workings of the robot blew my mind, and so did the enormity of the stadium.

The day before we left, I had a request from a former Doulos girl who joined a few months before we left the ship:

"Estoy buscando una persona que haya trabajado en OM para escribir unas palabras de introducción a mi librito."

(Would you be willing to write an introduction to my book?) 

I accepted the challenge. She emailed the document immediately. For two days, between matches, I was enthralled reading her stories and reliving our own experiences on the M/V Doulos.

Meanwhile. . .
--Recycle Rush was in progress: robots "can burglaring" (stealing RC's, recycle cans, from the center platform); stacking totes six-high with an RC on top; the human player throwing "litter" (pool noodles) on the opponents side and/or placing one in each RC.
--announcers enthusiastically retelling the moves, pointing out strategies or spills.
--teams cheering loudly.
Multiply all of the above by eight = one loud noisy stadium.

Each team played ten qualifying matches during the two days in randomly selected alliances.
PhyXTGears played four on Thursday and six on Friday always adjusting strategy in accordance with the varying strengths of the alliance partners. Once we were very fortunate to be allied with #1 and #2 seeded teams and get the highest two-day score.

By the end of qualifying matches, we were sixth out of 76 teams in our field and therefore in a position to choose alliance partners for the playoffs.

Jeremiah, one of the drivers, wearing the team captain hat, chose alliance teams based on the hard work of the scouting team and their careful analyses the night before. Unfortunately, the favored teams were taken by the time it was his turn to pick.

Above: Jeremiah, team captain; Captain +1
Below:Captain +2; Captain +3, discussing strategy

Above:Opening ceremony; drive team setting up robot for a match; the finals fiesta!

We never imagined we'd make it to State, much less to Worlds, and then to finish seventh--unthinkable!

On the way home I shared "Seafaring Stories" and threw in stories of how Mike and I met.
All in all it was a wonderful adventure and team-bonding experience. We are feeling very grateful, and tired! It was 3:30 Sunday morning when we finally arrived home. Now, I must recover from the sore throat and cold. And Michael still has bouts of immobilizing hip pain that plagued him during the event. The long distance he had to walk between the stands and the pits brought it on every time and became more frequent and intense. He practically lived on Ibuprofen. It is the same mysterious pain he had after surgery last year, but now on the other side.

Coming back we faced some serious realities of life on the home-front, like a valley after the exhilirating mountain-top.