First off, this is not a political post. I’m not endorsing Trump, nor am I endorsing anybody else
I’m just sharing an interesting story.
Some of you may have heard that President Donald Trump held a rally in NH on the eve of the election. Some of you may even have been there. However, how many of you held a team meeting across the street from the SNHU Arena in Manchester? (During week 6)
Our first mistake was holding a meeting that night (our meeting space is right across the street from the arena), but our second mistake was underestimating the road closures around the building. Our meeting started an hour and a half before the rally, yet parents were forced to drop students off blocks and blocks away from the Manchester Makerspace, our team’s home.
Finally, everyone had arrived. A surprising number of mentors and students had showed up, albeit lately. We believed for a minute that we could get work done. After all, it was week 6 and we didn’t have a robot yet. Then, we heard it. The applause. The cheers. And above all the noise, a voice, shouting unintelligible words that hit us like a bag of CIMs. The media staff was broadcasting the event onto the Jumbotron outside the arena, coincidentally also outside our window.
The Mechanical sub-group had the privilege of working in the shop, where the noise of machines drown out the cries from the rally. The Software team was less fortunate. From where I was sitting, I had an unobstructed view of the event, all while attempting to decode the Network Tables protocol spec and figure out the Victor SPX. It was tough work, made tougher by the din coming from just outside.
It was a slow meeting, with successes few and far between. We powered through, however, not without learning a great lesson. Never, ever, throw a bag of CIMs.