fried

[archiver]

Posted by Kyle Huang.

Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Gunn High School and Sun Microsystems, Nasa/Ames and Xerox PARC.

Posted on 4/11/2000 10:08 PM MST



this was my second and last year with my team. this year, although i wanted to
work on the robot badly, i had to commit myself to animation, because i was
the leader of the team, and i wasn't about to walk out on the rest of the members.
the team worked badly, because there was a high slack-factor among
many of the members. excuses and, well, BS plagued me every day, and
some members were VERY counterproductive as well. anyways, i got the
minimun amount of sleep possible, my grades plummeted WAY down, and i
was about to explode. about four people did the entire animation, out of a team
of eleven people. we had to enlist the help of a veteran that was going to college
nearby, one member from 115 Monta Vista Robotics for a day,, and Daniel
Lehrbaum came back for a few days to help us during the last four days. it
was a struggle the whole way, and after nationals i'm completely fried.
(PS, thanks to ken pflum, daniel lee, and daniel lehrbaum. we wouldn't have
finished without you guys!)

i'm sick of animation, i'm sick of FIRST, and i hate 3D studio max with passion.
while working on the animation, shadows would randomly turn on and off...
i could not fix the shadows in one cut, and it was the day of the deadline so
i had to start rendering. in the middle of that cut, the shadows rendered for 1/5
of a second (6 frames) - there is a big noticeable flicker in the middle of it.
AND, all the robot textures in that cut were ray tracing as well, which only
slowed the whole thing down - we have no idea why the textures were
ray tracing. we never told them to, they just did. we had so many problems
with 3D studio max, i never want to touch the software again. no offense
to anyone at autodesk... i'm going to try to switch GRTv over to a different
animating software for next year.

FIRST is a great organization, but maybe i just need time off of this project
for a while. we didn't rank very high at nationals, because we were one of a
handful of defense-only robots. we all feel like we were overlooked big time
during alliance selection (obviously), but our advertising was very very bad.
and the knowledge that we were right on the border of being picked by at
least two top-16 teams (one of which went on to win) only makes it harder.

The way we were paired with robots during qualifying really makes me sick
as well. the good got better, and the not-good stayed the same, or climbed
or fell a bit at a time. we had non-scoring alliance partners in all but one
of or qualifying rounds. how were we supposed to rise in rank???

the animation entries: well, i don't want to start another debate and piss
more people off like last year... i thought our animation had a fighting chance,
and was definately better than at least one of the winners (not including
rising star, of course).

i simply feel like i gave my soul to this competition, and i have nothing to
show for it now. in the animation we submitted, one of the cuts is out of
order, the music doesn't line up as it was intended, and i spelled 'sherriff'
incorrectly (it was late, i was tired). that also doesn't include the flickering
shadows i described above. people that see our animation cannot stop
saying how great it is, but i can never stop thinking about the errors the
mistakes we made.

i will be posting a version of our animation on the web, as soon as
adobe premiere stops crashing. this version, if you don't mind, will be
corrected. spelling errors will be corrected, the music will line up as it
was originally intended, and the cuts will all be in the correct order.
we're also thinking about releasing a full color version because the
detail is much more present and visible. for those of you who didn't see
it, our animation was a silent movie. we sepia-toned it, added scratches
and dust and film grain... there was perfect music written by a student
at Gunn..... i'm also going to release an MP3 of the music.

anyways

the animation competiton is such a subjective thing. there isn't a way to
set rules for creativity. it's all based on opinions and biases. there is
absolutely no way to know what the judges will like, and to build an
animation around that. this is another thing that has me frustrated.

i may be facing not going to the single college i was accepted to because
of my grades right now. anyways, i've had enough. it was fun, but it's over.
and although i'll still support my team in any way, i doubt i'd ever go back
as a participant. when i'm out of college and have made millions and
millions, we'll see about sponsoring teams (especially GRT). florida was
fun, but for now, i'm fried - extra crispy.

wow, this is quite a long message. thank you for reading all the way
through it.