We were up bright and early eating breakfast at 5:30AM.
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 sponsors for making it possible for us to build our robot and attend such fantastic competitions. We are inspired by the creative designs and interesting features presented by other teams. Thank you sponsors!
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!
Our robot was seen doing much better. With a lot of hard work, and thoughtful analysis, our system was debugged. We were shooting 2 point shots very consistently from the fender, even when being heavily defended against.
We are so proud of our drive team, and our pit crew, both students and mentors for persevering through many tense moments and finding ways to make it all work out in the end.
We gave hugs all around today! Hugs to each other….
…and hugs to the little kids. Our blue bear was one of the favourite mascots in the venue. 
We saw other mascots in the pit. This one reminded us all of Captain Canada who came to New York…
….and to St. Louis with us last year.
We know that Captain Canada was in action at the Arizona Regional with our friends Team 610. Congrats to Team 610 on their regional win! We’re looking forward to sharing Captain Canada at worlds!
Meanwhile back at the pit, we received an award from team 1305. We were given the “personality in the pit” award. 
Back on the field, we were selected by team 781 to be on the 6th alliance. We selected team 288 to join us, and we set off to prove ourselves in the elimination rounds.
We needed to pass inspection once more before eliminations. We put on our final touches and then took to the field.
In the quarter finals we had our autonomous mode working, scoring high baskets even when slightly nudged by our alliance partners! We staged an upset, taking down the 3rd alliance, and making a debut of a new defensive strategy.
Morale was high, and we were dancing up a storm in the stands….
…and on the sidelines. We played very strongly in the semi finals, against a very strong alliance. We lost a heartbreaking last match by only one point!
The number 1 alliance, led by teams 1114 and 2056 worked so well today with rookies 4372 to win the regional. There was one surprise “upset” though, when team 2056 was tipped over while crossing the bump. It is rare to see them up-ended like this!
In our last match, a motor was knocked off, and we weren’t sure how badly our robot was damaged. In the pit we realized that a bolt had been sheered, but the electronics and motor were still in working condition. The robot then got bagged and tagged, and loaded up with the rest of our tools onto the bus.
We gathered for a team photo before heading home. It was a very exciting day, full of hard work, good fun, lots of dancing, and a robot that scored more balls today than any other day!
We stopped on the way back to Kingston for dinner. Our waitress took one look at our group and said “You guys look like a lot of fun!”
It was great to have time to unwind and have a few laughs, and to discuss what we need to do next. When mentioning bumper repair, it was suggested that they get bedazzled….“My favourite colour is sparkle!” -Michael, Queen’s Mentor. 
As is our team tradition, on the bus ride back, we played music, and cracked open the glowsticks to have a “bus rave”.
Returning home to the school, we unpacked the bus….and started to load back into our classroom.
But we were faced with a rather shocking scene when we returned:
Our room had been broken into, and computers taken.
The police came and took over the scene….
…and we packed all of our robotics gear in another area for the time being.
K-Bots: enjoy a few days of rest from robotics, be proud of what you have accomplished this season so far. It will soon be time to gear up for St. Louis! Thanks to all of the friends, families, and sponsors who have been cheering for us. We appreciate your support!
We got to the Waterloo University PAC around 7:15 and were the first team there by far. We’re not used to this, and were a little surprised not to see our friends 1114 and 2056. We think they were there just as early but at another door.
We made good use of our time to nap a bit, chat a bit, knit a bit, and get excited. 
When the stands opened up we realized quickly that things can very easily fall down through the open areas and get lost under the bleachers. We aren’t supposed to go under the bleachers to retrieve things, so we decided to tie all our important tools to ourselves so they don’t fall down. Here’s how we keep our scissors safe.
The pit crew worked hard to set up our tools and get the robot pieces back together again. Yesterday we created a long list of tasks, and decided on priorities. Today we worked our way through them all!
We put up all of our pit decor, proudly displaying our sponsor logos on the wall. Our sponsors have been extremely supportive this season, and some have already redoubled their efforts to support our team now that we are going to the Championships. Thank you very much sponsors!
We are one of 30 teams at this regional competition. The venue is divided up into two areas. The pits are 10 foot cubes of space for each team which acts as our home base for robot repairs and battery charging. Judges come by the pit to talk about our robot and our team. Teams come by our pit to scout as well.
The other half of the venue is the playing field. We’re glad that we got here early to get some pretty great seats. We were sitting right behind our friends team 771. One of our mentors was a 771 student a few years ago! 
Our mentorship team is really special. We have many Queen’s University students who are alumni of FIRST teams (1114,610,771,772,1620, and our own 2809). Each of these mentors brings with them different skills, talents and experiences from these teams. We also have many mentors who have experience outside of FIRST which provides us with a wealth of ideas and approaches to solving problems, mechanical and otherwise.
One of our K-Botics alumni, John, came to visit us today. He is studying mechatronics engineering at Waterloo. John gave us a great campus tour and explained about how being a part of a FIRST team has helped give him hands on skills, and how important it is to work hard in high school classes to learn the basics so well that you can do them quickly. 
We saw a really cool solar car on the wall….
…and dinosaurs….
….and we even snuck into a lecture hall to see what being in a university class would be like. Thanks John so much for your great tour full of fun facts!
While some of us were on a tour, the pit crew was hard at work getting our robot to pass inspection. We connected the shooter again, positioned the new electrical box, made a new battery mount, and put a second camera on. It was a very very busy day, and we accomplished a lot.
Once there were lots of robots on the field playing practice matches, our veteran scouts started to train our new scouts. We record data about each robot’s performance in each match which gets compiled in a database. After 4 years we have an scouting system that works pretty well for us. 
When not scouting, we made time for other fun activities like knitting lessons….
….or walks in the sunshine to see the wildlife of Waterloo.
Our robot passed inspection, and was even under weight…by a good 6 pounds. We were able to take to the field to test out the systems in a real game scenario. There were a few bugs, but we’ve got a plan to work things out tomorrow.
When we realized how underweight we were, we were able to put on an upward facing bridge tipper that’s nice and robust. Vacuums are very handy to have when drilling through metal on your robot. Metal shavings can cause a lot of damage and some very exciting sparks when they get into the electronics. We worked hard to avoid that scenario.
By the end of the day, we were feeling a whole lot better about our robot! 
Part of our debugging plan included bringing a target back to the hotel to test the camera code. We looked pretty funny as we rushed through Waterloo University campus with our backboard!
We had dinner at the Mongolian Grill, which was a really fun experience, and the food was great too!
We returned to the hotel, absolutely exhausted, and were in bed by 9:30PM. The competition begins tomorrow. Here’s our match schedule.
Here’s a link to the 
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.
We proudly display our sponsor boards in our pit at competition.
We rented a trailer and filled it up with boxes….
with tools, and with our blue bear outfit.
We have a lot of tools!
And here’s our robot….in the bag and ready to go.
When we got to the hotel we had to sign a “no party agreement”. Too bad EVERYTHING at robotics is a party!
We had a lovely dinner at East Side Marios. Thanks so much to our parent mentors for arranging our food for this trip. It was a very good choice!
If you can’t tell, we’re all a little bit excited for competition season to begin. We’ll be up bright and early to get good seats for tomorrow. Follow us on twitter @frc2809 throughout the day for updates on our progress.
We’re making armour to hold 
…it is so important to thank everyone for all they have done to get us to this point in the season. 
While shooter testing continued, some last minute components were being machined at Transformix engineering.
Fingers crossed we’ll be able to add these 1.55lbs to the robot, and that the part will work as intended! Thursday’s moments of unbagging the robot will be dramatic and busy indeed, as we will need to attach various things, and modify various things before heading for inspection.
…and pre-competition scouting is being started. It’s hard to believe that some teams are already headed to their first competitions. We’ll be doing the same thing in a week!
We’re working on mounting our ball launcher on a robot height platform so we can continue to work on our programming this weekend. 
Programmers are hard at work. 
Today we learned how to revive a corrupt cRIO! If you’re dealing with a similar issue, please check out our 
We have been trying hard to get an accurate weight for our robot so we know what leeway we have to add more appendages. We weighed the bagged robot, and then the bag….did you know that the bag weighs 2.5 pounds?! 
We’re working away, enjoying our lovely new work tables. Thanks so much to -
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