Archive for March, 2009

Spring break is now over and I’m back at the academics. I was super busy over the break and actually slept less than I normally do. The craziness started Wednesday with the FIRST Robotics Competition Hawaii Regional. Before I go into that, how my break started was absolutely awesome, a trip to the north shore, specifically Waimea Bay.

We started at 14:00 in one of the school vans. With a stop at safeway to get provisions and for me. a quick stop by L&L, we were on our way to the north shore. Once there, we found a place for our stuff to be while we went swimming. The water was incredibly clear. I had kept hearing rumors about how clear the water was in Hawaii, but in my few months of living here, I hadn’t seen it and was beginning to think people were not telling the truth. The clear, warm, water was nice, but it wasn’t the best part of being in the water at Waimea, for that, you needed to put your head under the water and listen. Seemingly far away but coming from everywhere, was the sound of the song of whales, very humbling. After we were done swimming, it was getting late so we decided it was time for s’mores. The sunset was beautiful and everyone went home happy.

Margeaux, the RA from Mokihana, underwater. It’s hard to tell but the visibiulity is about 18-20 meters, to get this photo, I was about 5 meters away from her.

The group I was with, all good people to know.

The fire we cooked our marshmallows with, lighting them on fire was popular.

Nearing sunset

That’s root beer and it was delicious.

A panorama I took of the bay, click on the image for a larger version.

The robotics competition for me began on Wednesday with field set up. For the teams the competition began on Thursday and went to Saturday. This years game involved getting balls into trailers hooked on to the opposing teams robots. Field set up began with laying a carpet down.

Once the carpet is down points are measured off so that we know where to put the field elements


Then the parts are taken out of the boxes and placed on to the carpet.

This years game had a different playing surface than years past, where the past few years the game was played on the carpet, this year it was played on a slick surface of plastic for a low friction environment that was supposed to simulate the conditions of driving a robot on the moon.

I worked with a great group of people from the big island when setting up and during the competition.

I had a great break and hope that the break coincides with the robotics competition next year.

Back to studies
-Andrew