I think we know the routine by now - you share what you want to celebrate, we all celebrate it. Robot related, personal related, just survive… whatever. If you want to call it out as your win for the week we’re here to support.
My win - we decided to build a new PC. Got it running tonight with minimal fussing and it’s nice. (disregard the boxes, I haven’t put them all away)
running my theater’s haunted house
and I survived losing another friend
Made it (more than) halfway through first semester!
Got to volunteer for Boiler Bot Battle last week.
My team goes to Robo Replay tomorrow, hopefully thats a win.
I’ve been working on a NASA Lunabotics team and my code is finally getting tested.
Oof, I’m sorry to hear that.
Similar happened with me sadly.
On the brighter side, my college trips went great! At this point MIT is still my first choice but UMich has moved up to #2. My mom was pretty annoyed because she hoped the trip would knock some colleges off the list to make applications easier but they were all very cool. Also my MIT tour guide was a fellow Will Wood fan which was super cool.
Half way through qualifying at Cow Town Throw Down and we are sitting 2nd.
And we’ve gotten each of our potential future drive team members their first competition match — they looked good, especially as they’ve got just a few hours of practice under their belts.
Have you heard the 2018 i me myself demo yet?
Got started working at a new crisis hotline, and contemplating the whole reason I’m in the suicide prevention field to begin with. The people are amazing, can’t be matched anywhere else, as far as I’ve seen…
Survived the madness of being a freshman who get to register for classes lass getting out with basically all the classes I picked.
Went the Chicago International Film Festival last night and got to see the movie “Unstoppable” and met some of the crew that worked on it which was really cool.
Also just got a character I really wanted in a game after working for them for hours so that was really gratifying
Really excited for next week cause a lot of awesome things are happening that I can’t wait to share 
This week I’ve been visiting my parents and relatives in eastern Washington! It’s been nice to spend time with them, especially since my mom’s birthday was today (October 18th).
Now, I’m gonna list a few wins from this trip:
FRC win: getting a box of merch mailed to me with some very rare polos and hoodies.
Nerf wins: got to play 1/3 of the humans versus zombies games on campus, made it to the final stand of the humans! My $8.88 Walmart blaster carried me.
Also, the Kickstarter I backed for brightly colored tac gear shipped, and I get to pick it up when I go home tomorrow! Super excited for that, and I’ll probably use it for FRC as well.
Democracy win: ballot got mailed to my house and I’m picking it up. I do love Washington State elections, they really make it easy on you to vote.
Last senior homecoming! We nailed the show this year, and as hard as it is to believe it’s all over, I had a blast.
Got given some application fee waivers for having “applied” to Questbridge, so now I have more places to apply to!
Also just survived the week with my mental health mostly intact, there was a massive dump of work to do.
Oh yeah, survived this happening to the robot 2 meetings before comp:
My wife and I had a short trip to southern Ohio. We survived a couple “moderate” trails at Hocking Hills State Park. Beautiful area.
Edit: Billfred’s win below reminded me. We turned on our heat for the first time when we got back from Ohio. It was 59 in the house. While it was cool earlier, we just put on a fleece. Temps in Ohio were even colder than those in Michigan.
My framework 13 came!!! Ive been really happy with it so far =D
Finally started some maintenance work on the robot! Replacing the wheels and adjusting the intake, so maybe not the most exciting thing in the world, but I’m enjoying it!
Yeah I did, I thought it was pretty good.
Finally upgraded my phone. It’s the longest I’ve waited since launch for a phone since the ancient flip phone my mom got for all of us in 2005, but the release day on the iPhone 16s was the day before I was set to leave for FIRST Global. Then I had two work events. Then I had SCRIW.
Also switched phone carriers to a local operation (the same group that does my home internet, which is an offshoot of the local electric cooperative). The online interface has been kinda lousy (they’re clearly using someone’s private label system), but the phone support has been phenomenal and Verizon’s towers here are stout. And at $40/month plus tax, I’ll save about $1500 over three years compared to AT&T. So the whole “iPhone 16 Pro on us” thing doesn’t hold a lot of water for me.
Only downsides on all these escapades:
Also just finally kicked the heater on for the first time this season. I always resist a little longer than I probably should, but with my bride out of town this week I don’t have the usual darling wife staring daggers through me to fix it encouragement to make the switch. It didn’t kick on immediately, but it was also the first time this smart thermostat has done heat since I installed it over summer. Cycled the connection to the wall plate and it complied.
My team was demonstrating our robot at our school’s discovery night and I was the main driver. I also finally finished my application to my school’s National Honor Society so now I just gotta wait and see if they accept me.
Our first major recruiting push of the offseason seems to have gone pretty well, and if we retain a lot of the people who we think are interested, this’ll be our largest year of membership growth since 2021/22.
It’s nice to see us finally getting over some of the marketing mistakes we’ve made in the past, and I’m hoping it pays off from the sustainability point of view.
22/23 and 23/24 were pretty rough for us with recruitment, only getting a few active members each, so the progress we’ve made so far makes me a bit more comfortable.
