Tagaytay Robo :OOOOOO

Lol, so we drove all the way up to Tagaytay on the PISAY BUS just to get the hang of the basics in Robotics, which is quite silly, considering what we did in Tagaytay, we could have done in any other hotel in Manila.

But like our motto for the entire trip, "We can't complain, cuz it's free."

When we got to Tagaytay Country Hotel, we were greeted by this cute little welcome tarp. Hwaw, feeling important.

And when we got into the conference room we were treated like delegates - we even got free ballpens, pencils, notebooks and IDs. Lol

We ended up having to introduce ourselves and like always, I hadsome difficulty with my name. In the end, Brandon convinced the mentors that my name was Aba. -sadface-

Substantial amounts of our time were spent in that conference room, first with the Dancing Robots activity and then the Line-tracing activity.

For the first activity, I was grouped with Trixy, JP, JJ, Charles, an Tutti. Lols, we got the proogies with us. We had to program a robot to dance to music of our choice, additionally, we had to design our "mascots" or robot tops to match the music. The software used ended up being a bit like timing subtitles - except with instructions, velocities and directions instead of words.

Our group picked Spongebob and Patrick as our mascots and our song was, of course, The Campfire Song Song. Ahahaha, we were given a big block of styro, some illustration board, tape, cartolina and foil. Choosing our mascots as they were was a plus - what can be easier to make out of styro than a sponge and a star? JJ did the cutting, Tutti did the covering, I did the design and Trixy helped color. JP and Charles did the timing and choreography. All in all,we made a pretty good team, and it wasn't as awkward as I had thought.

We ended up making really kick-ass Spongebob and Patrick Figures. The other groups had Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett, Aladin and Jasmin, Poporing and Jiggly Puff, and two random arm-swining men dancing to The Epiphany, A whole New World, Shut up and Let me go and a song I do not know the name of.

Ahahahaha, it was hilarious when the robots actually hit the dance floor. Puro chambahan at crossfingers na lang. In the end, we got First Place, Jigglypuff and Poporing got second and Aladin and Jasmin got third. We got cookies :o

After that we went on to line-tracing with sensory robots. I was grouped with Trixy (again), Justine and Cat. We ended up having to program and modify the velocities (on and off time) of the two independent wheels of our Mobo. On our first mod-try we got 40 seconds, on the second we got a 44. Then on the actual run we got a 55 -sadface-. We still won first place though, partially because of luck. But after the contest was over we modified the speeds another time, increasing the response rotation on time by 50 and lessening the speed to a 550. We got 49 seconds. Ohwell.

The rest of the night was freetime, random random free time. I watched Enchanted for the first time ever, watched the guys (Joel, Esguerra, Brandon, Kokoy, Mai, Charles, etc) play pool and room hop like there was no tomorrow.

We established, through this all that Gender separation in rooms is futile, because in the end, we all just flock together anyway. We had the whole floor to ourselves, it was refreshing. Kristina taught Charles how to play Pusoy Dos and Job, Juan, Anton, Chuck, Lance and the others just occupied themselves with their video games.

By the time it reached 12, the adults were still at a meeting, so we pretty much threw the notion of sleep out the window. I wouldn't have gone to sleep had it not been for Brandon who scared the living daylights out of me with his zombie talk D: He made me cry.

After all that, it's a miracle how we found the willpower to wake up at 6:00, dress up, have breakfast and send people off to mass. The people who didn't go - Me, TJ, Kristina, Kokoy, Brandon, Joel, Anton, Juan, and Esguerra took all the time we had. We spent some idle time with Brandon, who took it upon himself to make the most out of the numerous couches situated around the hotel to catch up on sleep. After that, TJ, Kristina, and I spent some time with two of our mentors and played some "tennis".

By the time we got back to the rooms, everyone was up, once again, playing video games. You'd think they'd drop dead after 10-12 hours straight of eye strain, but no, they just kept on going. Somehow, it makes me proud lol.

Our last activity in Tagaytay was the ComSci Software lecture on Labview, to simulate signals, etc, that we might be able to use for our robots. We were supposed to have team-building sports, but meh, we didn't have time.

In the end, I had a lot of fun, and got to know a lot of people better. I still think that DOST's expecting too much out of us, but maybe, in some miniscule way or another, this teambuilding really did help us, and might help us once again in the future.

Things we accomplished
1) Robo Prep
- sensors
- locomotion
- Programming
- basic mechanics
- software handling
2) Acquaintance-making
3) Team Building

Things we didn't accomplish
1) Team Name
2) Team Website
3) Sponsor Gathering.

Things I still need to do
1) Physics Probset
2) STR Exercises
3) STR Reporting
4) Bio
5) English
6) Fil