Today was a big day for robotics Vermont. We had our Virtual championship today. Usually it’s a big face-to-face event with hundreds or maybe even 1000 people… This year it was all online. We had Field of 2018 ‘s… Of which 18 were from Vermont. I believe that’s the highest we’ve ever had. A particularly proud that 11 of the Vermont teams were the ones we started using the first stem equity grant we received. We nearly doubled the number of teams in Vermont however some of our veteran teams chose not to compete this year. It’s been a very tough year because students have been able to get together to build the robots and have been able to meet in school. Still 18 of those teams manage to build some pretty cool bots and compete.

Today’s event was really nice. We had some excellent judges who talk to everything from first year one person teams to 10 person ten-year teams. And they made each of them feel good for what they had accomplished. Kristin and I were the MC ‘s… Despite some early A/V problems we were able to hold a good event. My friend Kyle Clark gave a great inspiring opening talk.

Then we watched Videos from aboutabout nine teams. We got to watch some first year teams who done a great job… And a veteran 10 year team that is a one time world champion. As a matter of fact they are recorded match for our championship is now the world record high score for the event… That was pretty cool.

My deep thanks go out to my friends Doug, Kristin, Cortney, Kimberly, Iain and all the judges for coming together to make this event work. Also my deep respect to all the teams… Especially the new ones. I think we All learned a lot this year and are well position for a strong showing next year when we (hopefully) can get back together face-to-face

The rest of the day was nice and easy. It’s such a relief having the first event behind us. Diane ‘Kyle and I went for a 7.2 mile hike and then we came back and finished an impossible puzzle.… The highlight of the night was a zoom birthday party for my nephew Jake. It’s great to see everybody. Jake got some Texas clothing and a hat… He looks so great in them

I remember the day jake was born… I was in Shanghai and Merry called and let me hear him cry. I talked about it in this blog post in 2007… If you scroll down you can actually hear my recording from my cell phone of Jake’s first conversation

http://johncohn.org/base/2007/03/14/wednesday-night-the-circle-of-life-welcome-baby-liddicoat/

OK… Time for bed.

nite all, nite sam

-me