Atlanta Trip Report- For Jessica ;)

Competition Championship Event
1

EEK! So now I have to spend all my free time on this trip report. geeze. :yikes:

Ok, so today we arrived at Atlanta around 8:30am after eating at Shoney’s at 6am. EEK again. Our first stop was the WORLD OF COKE! HURAH! We found out that over 1,000 people have registered for the tour today, most FIRST teams. It was rainy and very overcast, odd for Georgia. We started out going around and looking at the exhibits, going through their propaganda machine (you have to worry about an exibit where the theme song is “We are always with you, every day” :ahh: )

Next was the Underground. We wanted to go to Hooters, but decided not to. We found a cool little place to get massages using water, and Mr. Ivey took them on the offer, more pics soon. :wink:

After that we did the coolest thing today, the CNN TOUR! IT WAS AWSOME! OMG! Anyway, we saw Headline News and the regular CNN stuff, and I love all the behind the sceans stuff. Very cool.

Anyway, at the Omni, it’s great. It’s awsome. I love it. We have tons of fast food, and also have MOE’s Mexican grill, so I guess MOE will have another favorite place. :wink:

As for teams, there are tons here. I was Miss Daisy, Oz, MOE, Buzz, and Chief, even though Chief isn’t staying at the Omni.

Anyway, that’s a whirl wind tour, I just took a shower, didn’t bathe in 36 hours, and we are going in 30 mins to dinner. If you see someone from Sparky, ask for Joe Matt if you want to meet me.

2

Ok, it’s the early report! Today we woke up at 5:30am to get everything to the dome. We were second in line, behind only 67. We were in line at 6ish. I think this will be a huge problem for teams, trying to get everything down to the pits that is large. Oh well. Gotta meet the team in a bit, see ya latter!

3

if you have a digital camera or know anyone with one, please take pictures of everything an upload them (fields, pits, entrance, walkway to field, walkway to pits, food stands, people, robots, einstein field, etc)

4

I’ve been watching all 4 video feeds on my computer since 6:30am. Here’s what happened:

< 6:36 Field control lights started blinking
6:36 Newton came online
6:40 A person in a black coat started configuring the video
6:46 Dr. Bot appears on Newton wearing a light jacket and carrying a radio
6:48 black jacket person appears on Archimedes
6:49 Archimedes Practice 2- Red: 1024,111 Blue: 1088,33, Archimedes is fully online
6:52 Newton Many have joined to fix the video.
6:54 Curie, “CSC Staff” yellow jactet walks in front of cam
6:55 Fleece coat, volunteer shirt wearing person eats breakfast
6:57 Newton, it’s apparent the video overlay is whats not working.
6:59 Galieleo Sony DVD Player / Video Casette recorder Splash screen
7:00 Curie video overlay is being worked on
7:04 Curie says Practice 1 on the overlay screen
7:08, Archimedes, someone was screwing with the video
7:10 Curie is online. Practice 1, Red:1097, 1388, Blue: 138, 1398
7:12 Newton, a large group meets in the stands
7:15 Curie’s feed dies
7:17 Nothing works
7:19 Archimedes is back
7:19 Galileo starts a video feed
7:23 Galileo working on overlay
7:24 Newton, video overlay almost works
7:25 Curie, First Segway in operation spotted.
7:27 Segway rider is on Newton, and then seen on Galileo
7:28 All feeds are up.
7:30, Archimedes, a volunteer suits up.
7:33 Newton, Eric Rasmussen spotted.
7:36 Curie, Suplier video is shown. Corporate logos fly from the left and right and get dumped into a red parts crate.
7:40 Newton, Volunteer inspects the intergrity of the field components
7:41 Curie, someone removes a Dupont race jacket and puts on a cape decorated with approximately 250 buttons. He also is wearing a red hat with green hair.
7:45 Archimedes displays the supplier video
7:50 Newton lets out a broadcast secret. Macromedia flash Player 6 does the overlays. It connects to a web server running on the local PC.
7:52 Archimedes and Curie show the supplier video
7:55 An awful hissing noise starts playing
8:01 Galileo begins displaying Supplier video
8:04 Newton, a show showing most of the arena. People are walking by the fiels and a Segway whips by. I now believe the Segway was solely developed for rapid transportation around FIRST championships.
8:05 All feeds seem to be working properly.
8:06 Time for me to post on CD

5

8:13am, Driver’s meeting on Curie

6

The set up is similar to last year’s at Houston for the fields. The only difference is that right behind Einstein field are FIRST Lego League Pits. Also, Einstein field has lots of cool lights on them. I’ll take some photos and get them uploaded latter tonight.

Also, not everyone has go into the pits, last I checked. Remeber, ask for Joe Matt if you want to meet me!

7

During the drivers meeting it was announced that the human player can touch the joysticks. Is the announcement inconsistent with the rules?

8

I don’t know reall, this is new information to me. Also, where are the webcasts you have?

9

http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/robotics/

10

Well, I just went to the CD web hug. It was fun and nice, but I was pushed for time, so I had to leave very quickly. Dave was there on his P series Segway, so was Andy, DJ, Mike, Brandon, and everyone. Man, Brandon is tall. VERY tall. Anyway, I meet DJ and I outsmarted his assasin and we parted ways. But that wasn’t the end. OHHHH no. After a bit, we went to the gift shop with my mom and R.Lopez. So anyway, we were walking then my mom has this wierd face and this guy comes and runs infront of me and between my mom and I. I though, “rude jerk.” Then I realized who it was. He said, “I just came here to give JosephM a bear hug.” “Oh $@#$@#$@#$@#.” I thought. So then Big Mike comes and crushes my spleen along with this other guy, didn’t get a good look at his face. To add insult to injury, who else but DJ Fluck runs up and takes a picture of it with the biggest smile on his face.

So Mike, you got me. :slight_smile:

Anyway, that’s the updates. Got this cool shirt and hat at the store and got my MOE Stix, so it’s all fun. So far it’s been an odd day.

11

I was surprised how easily Mike hoisted me off teh ground. I’m nearly 250 pounds and he lifted me up like I was a soccer ball! :ahh:

12

Bill Enslen called ahead to get us a discount :slight_smile: He went over it in detail in the Atlanta report he passed out on the plane.

Other guy was Dave from 222. They made a pretty good tag team. They might recruit me for a Spleen-Crushing Trio. :smiley:

13

Well, if yesterday was fun, today is really cool! There are TONS of cameras and celeberaties here. CNN, TechTV, and even The Woz are here! MOE is being interviewed right now, and I saw Chris Leary from TechLive. So far we lost our two matches, which is disapointing. Oh well, thus is competition. Anyway more updates. TechTV is now interviewing some teams, don’t know who though. I wanted to wait a day to say this, but I think it is time, Atlanta is VERY NICE! This is much better than Houston was, not only for location and the surrounding area, but they had loads more time to plan this event.

Hope to meet some more people.

14

Looks like TechTV was interviewing the Boilermakers, team 1031. I just looked at the TechTV website and found this page, looks like they will be on TechLive tonight.

15

Now that was amazing