Robotics

I've spent the last two days and will spend all day tomorrow at something called Robotics. It is this competition where these high school kids build robots and they battle it out in an arena. The entry fee is $6,500. You know who pays that? A lot of big name companies that sponsor these high school kids to play with robots. I was stunned. I was even more astonished when I read the Richmond Times Dispatch article in today's paper about the different robotics teams in the Richmond area. Most of them are like us and really struggling to find the sponsors and therefore the money they need for next year. Qimonda went out of business. A bunch of other organizations went out of business and now, well, we don't know what we're going to do. Anyway the article mentioned that Deep Run isn't having any trouble financially. They have $39,000 to start off with for next year.

On so many different levels this is an incredible experience for my son. He is interacting with older high school students in a positive way. He is included in the group. They're all astonished by his computer programming skills. I am so glad this is working out for him and I so hope the money comes next year.

Anyway, I'm a bit preoccupied with photography. I've taken 400 photos today and 250 yesterday. So far I'm not getting anything I'm happy with because the light is low, flash doesn't work well, and I don't have a camera that can do extraordinary things in low light. This photo shows where all the robots are clustered together in the center of the stage trying to push each other to the sides where team members can toss the balls into their trailers (baskets essentially) and win points.

I'll leave you with the bit of wisdom I overheard a teacher say, "It's harder to teach someone who knows something than it is to teach someone who knows nothing."