Today was the very day of the 10th Steam Cup Malaysia, and I was ready to go. I was dressed in my blue shirt that everyone was supposed to wear at the competition, and my battery (of the robot) was fully charged. I had stayed up until 11:00 at night to prepare for this competition, making last minute changes to my program.
I had downloaded the commands to my robot, and now it was ready to go. I would need to change the time my robot would move for, as I had to tell it how much to move forward by time - it's hard. (Rules for the competition are here - I hope it's not copyrighted)
After registering in the competition, I went to feel the platform. Oh, no. This isn't very good. The surface is so smooth! I'm gonna need to make my time a lot lesser! I thought.
I quickly opened my computer. I opened my program. I decided to decrease all the speeds by 20, but when I tried it out, it wasn't enough. My robot managed to push the bottles off the platform, but my robot fell with it too. I decided to decrease it by 20, but the lines got real long, so I had to wait quite a while to get a turn to try. And when I did, it missed the bottles too.
I decided to try going from the 2nd box. This time, my robot didn't fall, but didn't push the bottles down either, so I decided to increase the time by a little bit. It also missed the ending point because I didn't turn enough, so I decided that I had to turn more, and I would be done for my 2nd box.
I was experiencing the urgency of needing to do things fast. I needed to get all the times right so my robot wouldn't fall.
When the time came for the competition, I was there right away, because if they called your name 3 times but you still weren't there, you were disqualified. I was the 1st to go. I made sure to place my robot properly in a good starting point, and it moved forward. Good, I thought. It was just the right amount my robot was supposed to go forward, and my turning was smooth. But when it went forward to push the bottles, it fell drastically like a helpless baby.
No!
My robot had fell. Now, all I could do was hope that my 2nd round would work. I went back to my computer to download my 2nd program, and went back to my platform for the competition. During the 2nd time, I survived for longer. My robot moved forward but barely missed pushing the bottle off the platform. It then moved back, and then turned a perfect turn, but barely missed the bottles. When it backed up and turned again, it moved forward, then fell off the platform. I was almost at the ending point, but I had fallen. What was even worst, was the fact that I didn't push down any bottles.
Then, I went to see another activity, where the robots had to transport as many batteries as they could in the fastest time possible. I saw one robot that was really good. It used only 2 motors, and managed to complete the whole course (you was supposed to use 4 motors for this activity, but somehow this robot was able to do with 2). At the end, even the judge was really surprised, and was literally just looking at the robot, wondering how it managed to work.
After lunch, I got to see many robots fight. It was kind of like king of the hill/ladder, and all the robots had to fight to be at the top. After 1 minute, the robot at the top was the winner. If there were 2 robots, the one that was the lightest would win.
When they were trying to determine whoever was 2nd place, something amazing happened. A competitor asked the judge to check the size of a robot. It was then determined that the robot was oversize, and the person had 1 minute to modify it and make it smaller. The boy was left with no choice but to take off what had made him win all the rounds he had played in so far.
Cause' the robot, was an absolute god. I saw it kill 2 robots within 5 seconds 2 rounds in a row. But he had to remove his strongest weapon. At the end, all 3 robots in the round were at the top. Because of that, the lightest robot would win. Because the boy had took things off his robot, he won 2nd place.
I may have failed drastically in this competition, but what was most important, was the fact that I got to experience what it was like to take part in a harder activity, as I took part in an easier activity last year (click here for last year's competition). The most important thing was the fact that I learned something new, and got to experience something new.
