Notes from the regional FIRST robotics competition.

First, I should say that my child’s alliance WON! And my child is the captain of his team, which I think makes him an extra winner!

The way they play is by forming alliances–teams of three. Thus, there are six robots on the field in each game. My son’s team’s robot was so dominant that the opposing alliance devoted one whole robot in playing defense against ours–basically just trying to get in our robot’s way in scoring.

Aside from being in the winning alliance, his specific team also won the “Quality” award for the design, etc.

This is made all the more impressive because there were so many amazing teams and amazing bots out there.

Some side observations: there are way too many teenagers out there with 1970s porn mustaches. Someone needs to show them those old porns, so they will understand why the ‘staches are a bad idea.

No one, at the end of the song Macarena, should turn to someone else and say, “What’s that song called” & be serious.

Also, no one should be playing/doing the Macarena where I have to hear/see it. (And that’s not even the worst song they played.)

The boy walked around the whole competition for three days in an overheated room in his trench coat and Indiana Jones hat. When I asked him why a little while ago, he said, “it’s become iconic.”

Now what? Well, they will head to Nationals. They will need to raise $5000 just to enter. They also have to ship the bot to St. Louis. My son, since he’s team captain and driver coach, really should go. It will cost between 1000-1200.

His faculty advisor said to one of the other parents, “but not every family will be able to afford that” and stole a pointed look at me.

Not sure what we’re going to do, but we don’t have to know tonight. We just need to enjoy the Citrus Circuits first ever FIRST victory.