I figure i gotta share cause well subject. My kid joined is in a robotics team
this year in school. They design, build, and code a robot to perform certain
tasks set by the overseeing committee called FIRST.

They had theif first competion March 27-29 and if i'm being generous they did
terrible. They placed 38th out of 51 teams at that competition. Granted a lot
of the issues were not team issues and were much more just a string of bad
luck.
They sheared a bolt off that held a wheel on in their fist match something
that had not happened to them during practice at all. They missed their 2nd
match due to that wheel as they could not repair it in time. The 3rd match
their robot performed exactly as it was supposed to and they did extremely
well. Then in several of their final qualifying matches they were losing wifi
connection and breaking soldering joints left right and center.
The proud part comes from even though they were having so many issues they
kept trying. They showed up to every match still trying to do their best if
not for them for the other 2 teams in their "alliance" every match. Because of
that attitude when it came time for the top 8 teams to select teammates for
the double elimination finals the 4th place team selected my kid's team. The
first match of the finals their robot didnt have any issues and their alliance
won fairly handily. Unfortunately the gremlin hit again in their 2nd and 3rd
finals causing their robot to not function for 40-60 seconds of their 90
second matches.
The 2nd proud part was that with all the troubles they were awarded the FIRST
impact award. This is the most prestigous award given by the robotics
committee. It also gave them a "golden ticket" and were invited to the world
championships.

If you get bored April 17 through 19th you can watch the matches on twitch
here:
https://m.twich.tv/firstinspires_newton/home
As a shameless plug my kid's team# is 7531 Servos Strike Back.
Right now i only have Thursday's schedule they play 8:55, 10:23, 12:39, 4:20
and 5:56

kanis