“On the Culmination of Our Build Season” - Perspectus #12

Einstein is purported to have once said, “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.” As any of Code Red’s members can attest, this principle most certainly applies to our build season; our six week long season is almost over, and it certainly feels like it went by much too fast.

That isn’t to say that nothing has been achieved over theses past weeks; au contraire, our team has accomplished a remarkable amount of work this season.  Not only have we nearly completed our robot, each Code Red member has grown as an individual, and we have grown as a team.

How do I know that we’ve matured as a team? Through examining the team’s mistakes, and how we’ve responded to them. Several examples come to mind; specifically one challenge that the team faced quite recently.  After completing the robot’s drive system, the team tested its capability to drive over the carpeted bumps in the game field. Unfortunately, we discovered that the weight distribution and overall design of the robot would not allow the robot to safely maneuver over these obstacles.

Now, several comments can be made on how this situation could have been avoided; more extensive testing with dummy prototypes certainly could have helped, and it is important to keep these in mind for future years. However rather than using precious time to dwell on the past, Code Red members did the mature and logical thing: improvise.

Quickly realizing that it would be impractical to go over the bump, we decided to go under. By efficiently modifying our design, we were able to adapt our robot to go under the underpasses in the game field, again allowing us to easily traverse between the different sections of the field.

It is occurrences like this that demonstrate the resourcefulness of Code Red’s members. By thinking logically and keeping cool, we, as a team were able to successfully resolve a serious problem.

-Anonymous