The end of the robot

And, there was much rejoicing when team 4651 did not get picked to be on an alliance team for the qualification rounds.

This year's team placed 29 out of 63 teams, much better than the 50th place finish last year. And, the last match was quite suspenseful with the red team winning by one point. If the video would upload, I would put it here, but there are some problems with blogger trying to upload it. Just pretend that there are 6 robots on two separate teams trying to score points by passing and getting large exercise balls into goals. Ben's team's robot actually scored two of the goals for their alliance team helping them win 107-108.

Here is a computer rendering of what the game looks like. Notice the awesome faces in the crowd.

The boys on the team didn't seem too sad that they didn't get picked to be on an alliance team. They were just happy they did better than the previous year. While we were eating lunch, they all agreed that they were ready to go home and didn't want to watch any of the final matches. Ben said that on the drive home one of them also exclaimed, "FREEDOM!!!" 

Ben thought the exact same thing.

Robots has been quite the draining extracurricular activity. Ben would normally get home after 6 everyday and then go in for several hours on Saturday for 3 months. Russell hated it because his favorite play buddy was never home. I hated it because I felt like I did a lot of single parenting. Ben hated it because he was stuck at work for three extra hours most days and couldn't get any of his real work done. Lucky for me and Russell, we spent three weeks at Mom and Dad's during this time.

Russell will be sad, though, because he liked the 'bobot' and liked going in with dad occasionally to school while they worked on building the robot. He proudly wore his 'bobot' shirt to the last day of the competition and can pick out 'bobots' whenever we see them. He's already turning into a little nerd boy...

Teachers Fight for a Win

Friday night found many Dover-Eyota fans cheering in the stands at the high school gymnasium for the annual students vs. teacher/alumni/coach/etc. game. This year's game proved to be nothing less than a full 40 minutes of excitement for everyone as the teachers came back from a slow start to win 66-64 over the students.

Mr. Joslin kept things exciting for the teachers as he made sure to throw his weight around on the court and intimidate the little high school boys with plenty of smack talk and raking. He scored seven points and kept things alive for the teachers' defense.

When asked about his performance, Mr. Joslin commented, "I definitely contributed my share, but by the second half I was exhausted and didn't do as well as I should have." Maybe next year he can come back fully energized to help the teachers keep their claim to the win.

Getting pregame advice from his #1 fan.

He's done it again

He attracts cameras like flies.

So true

We have already decided on a name for our daughter, and I have decided a name for our van.