We have made it a K-Botics tradition to participate as a team in the KCVI Relay For Life event held each spring. This year the KCVI event raised over $17000 for the Canadian Cancer Society! 
Our team, made up of students, teachers and mentors, had a campsite in one of the basement hallways, and we needed to mark our territory by making a banner.
To pay tribute to our most recent all-night adventure we called our team K-Botics: LAMBeth 2.0 (For those of you regular blog readers, you’ll remember that it was in Lambeth that our bus broke down on the side of the road headed for St. Louis)
All participants were given T-Shirts….but after a few moments it was evident that there was a sleeve monster on the loose! 
After the opening ceremonies, where we heard from cancer survivors and family and friends, we did a lap of the luminary track with our teams. The luminaries are all dedicated to family and friends who are fighting the battle with cancer, or in honour of those who have passed away. 
Some people lingered to walk around the luminary track, which was open as a quiet space all night long, while others participated in some more lively events.
There was a dance competition! We did a pretty good job showing everyone our dance moves.
There was a pizza party for dinner…
…followed by a coffee house, where musicians showed off their talents….
…and there was a newspaper fashion show at 2:30AM! 
It has become a tradition for our team to put on a demonstration as well. This year it took a bit of preparation though. We needed to clean all the carpet which had been in the Transformix Warehouse since build season ended. We needed to vacuum the top AND bottom side of each roll. Thanks to the custodial staff for providing us an excellent vacuum!
We also had to ensure that the electrical system and programming were working on our Logomotion robot. Our Rebound Rumble robot is currently in a crate in Toledo Ohio, headed to Kingston sometime this week.
With the music pumping, our robot showed off for the crowds. It was great to see so many people line up to get their hands on the controls. We’re always looking for new members to join our team next year! Who knows, maybe some of these people will join our ranks.
As the night wore on, some of us took time out for a nap.
…or a quiet moment to read a book.
When the morning came, we were feeling a bit exhausted, but happy. We are glad to do our part to raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society.
In fact, our team raised the 4th highest amount! For this, we got prizes.
Thanks to Sam for being the team captain this year.
When the cue was aimed, the cameras picked up the angle, and projected where the cue ball would travel, and where the other ball would go after impact.
It was fun to try our hand at pool. We realized that some of us were pretty good! The tracer lines helped some of us a lot.
Thanks to the Queen’s students for inviting us back again. Although watching calibration was interesting, playing the A.R. Pool was much more fun. Good luck as you take this demo on the road–we’re sure it will be a big hit!
This is a project being worked on by one of our mentors who helped with programming and vision code this past season. He wanted to show us that some of the same techniques that our team used are being used by researchers in computer vision in other areas too.
We had a brief tour of the ILC, and learned about what goes on in the building. Many of us have been there before for Science Quest, or for our FLL practice tournament a few years ago. There is usually NOT a big tent set up in the computer area though. This is a special demo set up for A.R. Pool.
It needs to be under a tent to control the lighting on the pool table. There are cameras and a projector involved in the game, so lighting is very important. The cameras are supposed to detect where the balls are, and where the cue is, and the projector will then trace lines showing where the balls will travel after they are hit at a specific angle.
Unfortunately, when we arrived for our tour and demo, there were a few technical issues. The camera settings were off….
…so those got changed….
…and then the lengthy calibration process had to happen.
We know all about calibration. It is such an important step in making any system function well. We had days of calibration in the warehouse before our robot was shooting well.
Dawn was breaking as we walked to the Edward Jones dome, and the streets were very quiet. 
We arrived at 6:15AM and found ourselves among familiar company….our good friends team 1114 and 2056! We are in the same division as they are, so we stuck close by them as the crowds grew larger.
We saw many familiar teams as we waited. Some of these teams we remember from regional competitions, and others we see only at the championships.
We followed our buddies to the Archimedes area of the dome, and settled down in the stands behind them. Close behind us followed our friends team 781 from Kincardine.
It was a reunion of sorts….we’ve seen each other play so frequently at the Ontario competitions.
This year, unlike last, we have all 4 fields in the dome! 
While scouts were scoping out the competition during practice matches, our pit crew readied our robot for competition. Part of the task included attaching our freshly constructed bumpers. 
Last night our bumpers transformed from this…..
…to this….
…and finally this!
They are much more sturdy this time, and the reversible flaps work much better. 
Practice matches were played in the morning. During this time our pit scouts and photographers gathered information behind the scenes, and our drive team got to experience the excitement of competing on the world stage.
In the afternoon we started the qualification matches, and were scouting in full force!
As a break from scouting, we split into two groups and toured the St. Louis arch. Here’s one of the touring groups. We have Captain Canada with us, and it’s causing quite a stir as we walk around the streets of St. Louis with a mascot!
From the top of the arch there are commanding views of the city and the river. We can see our hotel and Busch stadium!
When not otherwise involved in team events, we have some time to explore the pit areas and see other teams, and see many exhibits.
We saw SWAT (team 771) and Sabre Bytes (team 772). We’ve got mentors from both of these teams working with us this year!
Part of the activities available in the pit area is the bedazzling of safety glasses. There’s never too much bling!
When we need a break from FRC robotics, there’s always FTC (First Tech Challenge) robotics to enjoy. Some of these robots had very tall scissor lifts!
You never know who you’ll find when you’re walking in the pit area. Several of our students saw Woodie Flowers….
…and got his autograph.
All in all it was a very exciting and exhausting day. Our poor blue bear got a little bit sweaty with all of the dancing!
Matches continued until just after 8PM. K-Bots were all in bed by 10PM, ready for another early wake up call tomorrow!
We would like to take this opportunity to thank our 
Thanks to our mentors and parents for driving. Thanks to Petey, a founding mentor of our team, for donating many years worth of bottles!
Parents worked hard, loading and unloading cases into their cars and doing the returns.
Kids worked hard collecting, sorting and crushing cans.
We ended up making over $600 on the day. Thanks to all who helped out! Feel free to collect more bottles, return them, and give us the money. This bottle drive never ends.
Today after school we repaired the crate walls…
…and strapped robot and bumpers down so they won’t jiggle around too much in transport.
The finishing touch was to screw down the top of the crate.
Here are two very proud crate assemblers. Many thanks go out to the crate builders who put in a lot of work last year. We all owe them one. 
Just to prove that the crate is solid, they gave it a kick for good luck.
Miss Compomants will be making her way to St. Louis via FedEx tomorrow! Hopefully it’s a smooth journey.
Today was also a special day for two K-Bots. Happy birthday to Jacob and Brennan!
We arrived to the competition and took our place in line behind our friends 1114, 2056 and 610. Team 188 followed quickly behind us, and together we ensured that today the mad rush was a little less pushy.
Everyone is so excited to get started in the morning….some of our grade 9 students were quite surprised to be waking up before 6AM on a weekend morning while on a school trip!
And while competition continued on the field, repairs (both small and large) happened in the pit. 
Our matches this morning were not as successful as most of the ones yesterday. We ended the qualification rounds with a 5-3-1 record, and in 16th place at the start of alliance selection.
We worked out a strategy with our alliance partners and developed a game plan over lunch.
During the elimination rounds the game plan changes from earning coopertition points using the middle bridge with your opposing alliance member to earning extra points for getting an entire alliance onto the bridge. 3 robots on the bridge barely fit, but we saw it a few times. Here’s team 1075, team 548 and team 4307 with a triple balance in the quarter finals…
….and here’s our friends team 610, team 188 and team 3360 who balanced like this for much of the afternoon!
We were not so lucky with our end game balancing act. We could usually get 2 robots on, but this time, the clock stopped with our partner half off. We were eliminated in quarter final play.
Our team continued to watch the rest of the drama unfold as the semis and finals progressed. 
Part of our team returned to the pit to clean up and pack all of our belongings. When in the pit, we’re super safe. Here’s Michelle, dressed in her purple, wearing her proper safety attire!
We’d like to thank our sponsors for all that they’ve done for us, and all of the support that they gave leading up to the competition. We would not be here without the financial backing, the material donations and the time and energy spent making our team what it is.
As we were cleaning up our pit area we got to know some new friends from team 2056. It’s a small world when we realize that our purple and blue families intersect with the Cyberfalcons! FIRST is great for joining individual teams together as families, and creating networks of teams among communities. 
Even though we were eliminated from play, we continued to dance up a storm!
We danced in the stands…and we danced on the sidelines with a few other teams. 
We watched as the finals progressed….it was a grudge match between an alliance of 1114 and 2056 facing an alliance of 610 and 188. We know these teams well–we meet them in line for the doors to open each morning! Some of our mentors were once part of these teams, and we cheer them on and watch in awe at the things their robots can do.
At the end of the competition, awards are given out to many teams. Many teams qualified to go to championships from this regional. Many congratulations and standing ovations were given to the following:
“The Engineering Inspiration Award celebrates a team’s outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering and engineers, both within their school and their community. Criteria include: the extent and inventiveness of the team’s efforts to recruit students to engineering, the extent and effectiveness of the team’s community outreach efforts, and the measurable success of those efforts. This is the second highest team award FIRST bestows.
At breakfast we made sure that everyone had washed and put on their deodorant. Our hotel has a deodorant vending machine!
Breakfast was followed by a brief organizational meeting, and then the carpool caravan headed to UOIT for the tournament.
We arrived to UOIT in the rain just in time to rush the stands for good scouting territory. Of course we were behind our friends 1114, Simbotics, who are known for arriving early!
We got some really good seats to scout from today. We will have to wake up pretty early to get these kinds of seats again tomorrow.
While our pit crew got our robot ready for inspection and set up the pit itself, the scouts learned how to fill our their sheets, and heard about our database that we’re using this year. 
One of our parent mentors had a great idea last year in St. Louis, that we should give away buttons that are little knitted hats with 2809 on them. From that point on patterns were made, and little hats were knit in many households. We now have 1400 little hat pins! Stop by and see us in the pit, or in the stands and get one–everyone needs a little purple spirit!
We got onto the field and tried out a few things. We shot a ball….
…and balanced on a bridge with team 2056. 
We also learned that balancing a bridge looks easy, but in most cases is really difficult to do!
At lunch we calibrated our robot camera on the field…
…while others ate lunch. Thanks so much to our parent mentors who arranged for a rather large Subway order for all 3 competition days. Thanks to Subway for donating drinks to our team!
Our scouting teams got into action in the afternoon visiting the pit areas and getting to know other teams a little better. Scouts also watched each match and made notes on the progress of each robot.
The blue bear came to visit for part of the afternoon. We’re looking forward to having a bit more spirit tomorrow when teams are dancing along to the music!
We continued to work on our calibration and testing until the pits closed. Tomorrow is looking like a very exciting day of matches. Please have a look at the 
We had a delicious dinner at Swiss Chalet this evening. It’s lots of fun eating at restaurants, mostly because they have straws with wrappers, which are a big source of entertainment for our team. “Straws are a weapon of mass destruction!”
Despite our differences, we are bound together by our mutual interest in robots, science, technology and our team. We are there to support each other through the tired moments, and even share a chair at dinner if needed. Hugs and jokes are plentiful, and that makes our days brighter and our team closer. We’re realizing now how tight knit we have become!-
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award brainstorming breakaway build season bumpers CAD Chairman's Report communication community competition construction Cyber Falcons dance demo design electrical families field field trip First Robotics FLL FRC fundraising GTR kick off Logomotion Machining media mentors New York City Regional organization pre-season challenge programming prototype Queen's University rebound rumble safety scouting sponsors team building testing thank you Transformix video WAFFLES
