Part of a slow-coming but technically proficient series of diary entries from the RoboCup 2007 competition:
–Day Zero
–Day One
–Day Two

Another 7 A.M. start. This time, I arose from a different bed in our luxury suite. We had consolidated our four palatial mansions down to two, and so Nick Dunn and Mark flooded Jesse and my domain. I had the master bedroom the night before, but gave it up so that I could have a bed to myself in a smaller room. Getting up wasn’t that hard; there were things to be done.

We, as usual, made it to the Fox before anyone else. Being located across the street to the venue certainly gave us an advantage, albeit an expensive one. We got to have 30-45 minutes of solid debugging with all our dogs out on the field before others started to encroach upon space. Things were working pretty well. I can’t remember finding any serious bugs then, mostly because we hadn’t played yet. We were scheduled to play @ 14:30 against Jolly Pochie.

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Part of a slow-coming but technically proficient series of diary entries from the RoboCup 2007 competition:
–Day Zero
–Day One
–Day Three

Day 2. The Second Day. RoboCup World Championships 2007. Here we go.

This day was by far one of the most infuriating days in RoboCup history. It all came down to the lighting. First off, we only had three fields. Three fields for 24 teams. Last year in Germany they had four fields, and none of them were practice fields. They were all game fields. Secondly, the lighting, even by the morning of the second day of set-up, was horrid. The lighting inside the Fox was really dim to begin with — I myself had deluded visions of ghosts past in the team room — and the beams on the fields were not enough. Joho was up there on those ladders with his flip-flops in hand finding lighting solutions with Naomi, the spunky NUbot vision guru. We all got to the venue @ 7 am to meet with lighting guys who were supposed to show up.

The morning was kind of a blur, as of course the lighting guys didn’t show up right away. The lighting guys came, and after much appeals from myself and Chown-Dawg, a real boss came and was not happy with the progress. He sent out for more lights, the best solution we could think of, and when they came back, things started to click in. The new lights were, according to Joho, what we needed.

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Part of a slow-coming but technically proficient series of diary entries from the RoboCup 2007 competition:
–Day Zero
–Day Two
–Day Three

MORNING:

Day One is game-face day. One needs to make entrance to international robotic dog soccer competitions. Tucker, Jesse and I decide to take care of registration. Jesse asks me: “Are you sure you have the registration materials?” “I’ve got it covered. No problem.” So we stroll.

Suddenly, as we stroll through midtown Atlanta, I’m hungry as all get-up. So where do we go? That’s right, American’s Kitchen: CVS Pharmacy. A few granola bars later, I’m straight. So after some guessing, we think that our best bet to get to Georgia Tech campus is to catch a bus 12 blocks away. We get there. Man, is it hot, we think. We wait around wondering if we’ve reached the right place. Finally, we see a special ‘Stinger Bus’ fitted with a ‘ROBOCUP’ sign. I grimaced as it isn’t properly punctuated as ‘RoboCup’. Never the less, despite their sheer insolence, we board. On the bus… RoboCup people from foreign lands! Sweet!

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Part of a slow-coming but technically proficient series of diary entries from the RoboCup 2007 competition:
–Day One
–Day Two
–Day Three

As in Computer Science, this journal starts with Day Zero. I’m flying at thirty thousand feet with the nBites crew, and the outdoor elements are making bad metaphors outside of the plane. On the starboard side (does boat terminology work on airplanes?) , there is a perfect ROYGBIV sunset. On the left hand side, a raging lightning storm of death. Remarkably, this plane is flying straight through the middle. I can only figure that this can only be a sign of the journey to come. Either we fade gloriously into the sunset, or a lightning bolt fries our ass. Atlanta, here we come.

–Weeks Later–

Well, it turns out that neither greatness nor failure can happen sometimes. We got diverted. As ball-lightning descended upon the ginormous Hartsfield International Airport, we went elsewhere. We landed with other planes @ an airport without jetways. We hung out there, posturing as we considered bringing our robots out of their shells and let them stretch their legs on the floor. We took off again, and made it to Atlanta. We were blearly-eyed as we ran into a group of blind people getting on the terminal subway. We were worried when one decided to go left exiting instead of right.

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