Team Equilibrium

Competition day dawned and J was up bright and early to leave for the MTN Science centre with his team mates. Yet again, they had stayed up until about 10.30 pm fine tuning their robot. We got there just before the opening ceremony. One of the team members did a spectacular ramp onto the stage on his bike. The tension mounted as they went into a side room to be judged on their robotics. The judges were highly impressed with their original robot that they ditched in favour of the robot the made this week. They came out feeling pretty confident and went into the pit area to practice on their runs. Tension was high and I think we were all running on adrenaline!

Team practice area.

J and J (in fact, all the team members initials are J.....so the should have been called the J team!) manned the table twice before lunch with the robot for their timed rounds.They had to do a total of three timed rounds for the competition. They did well and there were shouts of joy and much cheering as the robot performed the assigned tasks.

The real timed deal.

The team was approached for input by some guys who are developing software that will allow for more efficient programming of the robots. This was a real boost for the team. As we went off to feed the hungry team, spirits were high as they were tied in second place at lunch time.

Lunch break.

They had also done their presentation on their research project before lunch so the last task was another timed round at the tables. It was great to see so many other home-ed families there who came to support the team


The boys handled the whole task of manning the table with confidence and they worked well together under pressure.

The teams were finally called up for the award ceremony and they received medals .

We are not sure of how it all happened as they had been in such a good place before lunch, but the team did not get any trophies. They came away feeling disappointed after all the hard work they had put into this event.

One thing I am proud of is that they refuse to be defeated and they are determined to come back next year and give it a shot again!