So today I went to my first ever FIRST Robotics competition. I gotta say it was pretty amazing. I am on Chuck 84. Our team didn't make semifinals (due to a piece of rug that wasn't TAPED down well enough getting stuck on us; consequently in the match after a staff taped it) but we got something amazing done at least. We took with us 3.5 tons (7,000 lbs) of books to the book drive, accounting for about half of all the books donated. So we got a big trophy for that. If you WANT, you can check out the website (http://www.fsrobotics.org/moe365//duel2008/duelhome.php).

I can't get the webcast to work. Also as it was happening, me and my buddy were in the LOBBY on his laptop and we were getting the same timed out error on FireFox. I read on a forum that we need to open the link (http://asp.shinraikon.com/duelvii.aspx) through VLC but I don't know how. I'll keep messing with it tonight but if anyone could just tell me how to stream it, that'd be awesome.

I honestly never thought that robotics would be quite this fun. I think this competition was so incredible. It's kinda like a free roam do what you want thing, with people walking all over in the pits, and dancing (see girl in skirt on webcast; she danced soooo much). They played music the whole TIME and it was like a great energy. I think people there were more enthusiastic than I've seen people be at sporting events.

So much fun, I recommend FIRST Robotics.