FIRST Robotics Canadian final: Day one - Qualifications
by Adelaide Z | March 31, 2011 Day one is done and it had it's ups and downs over the 11 hours we spent at the Mississauga Hershey Center. The status of the Henri-Bourassa robot: the arm is having difficulties due to a combination of design and programming issues. Autonomous mode isn't going to happen. The minibot may or may not make it into the final robot, but we've passed inspection and are ready to begin tomorrow's qualifying round in whatever shape we start in. We can do additional work through the qualifying round.
Walking around and looking at the other robots was a little frustrating as it was apparent that so many of them had many more man hours of build time available, greater funding for parts, larger resources and facilities...and in many cases a fair bit more experience. But that's isn't the case for all of them as some are having difficulties even functioning while others haven't managed to pass inspection yet.
The atmosphere is pretty good as each team is willing to help out the others regardless of the status of their own robot.
After they kicked us out of the robot pits at 8 PM, we all went for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe.
Now, 15 hours after I left the hotel this morning, I'm back and am now ready for a good night of sleep! Tomorrow is another day.
Check out all the pictures from the qualifying round on the Vigilant Futures Flickr page.
