Black Friday 2013, and my thanks Giving experience

Hey everyone. This year’s thanksgiving blog is going to be a little different. This year, the blog doubles as an assignment for Dr. H’s class. We do an “a day in the life” about our experience with crazy black Friday shopping for extra credit. So instead of talking about this Thanksgiving break in chronological order, I’m going to first talk about black Friday and then about everything else.

First some quick context. It’s Thanksgiving. I get 4 days off for the holiday. This year my brother brought home one of his college friends, an Indian grad student studying at his college. He’s from India and this is his first time in the US. He wants to experience American Thanksgiving and all that comes with it. I was looking forward to showing him the craziness that is Black Friday. He is referred to as “J-man.”

While getting dressed for Thanksgiving, I notice the 2 extra safety vests I have in my closet. I tell everyone that is going shopping with us "ya know, I have 3 vests and 2 hoddies. We could all match this year." Joking definitely, don't want a repeat of 2012.

Black Friday was really different this year. Unlike 2010, 2011, and 2012, all the stores opened up way early this year. They all opened up at like 6 PM and 7 PM Thanksgiving DAY! This made everything quite boring. As we do every year, my Dad went out and bought the Thanksgiving Day paper so we could get all the circulars. I know that I can do that all online, and I did a little bit before coming home, but it just isn’t the same. There’s something about actually flipping through those glossy pieces of paper scanning every ad for something that we might want. Have a look at the kayos.

Since my TV at college died, and I’ve been using an analog TV tuner connected to a 12 inch monitor to get my live TV, the one thing I was really looking for was a TV. All I needed was one that was at least 24 inches, had HDMI for my blu-ray player, and was under $100. That’s actually the same blu-ray player I picked-up last year.

We knew we could get a TV with those specifications. Black Friday always has deals on TVs. That’s how we got my grandpa’s TV. We found a couple in the circulars. Best Buy had the one that was perfect; Insignia 24 inch, $79, perfect. It was a 7 PM door buster. We were still doing our Thanksgiving thing at 7 PM. However, since this was the only thing we were actively trying to get, I was given permission to leave early, try to get the TV, and then come right back. I told Mom, the “ringleader” of both Thanksgiving and Black Friday, that “since I’ll already be in the store, I’ll try to get the one other think I wanted from Best Buy,” and being a reasonable request for this, the craziest shopping day of the year, I was given permission to also try to get the other thing. What was this other thing? The Big Bang Theory Season 6.

Now I begin my trip to Best Buy. On my drive over, I start thinking over my game plan. “OK, if it’s anything like previous years, it will be really crowded with a line extending halfway around the parking lot of the next door bowling alley. Since they’ve been open for 30 minutes, that line will likely be down to a quarter of the lot. Since I’m just 1 person, I won’t need to worry about getting separated from the group when let in and I might get some priority. The lot is going to be packed. The most likely open place will be on the far end of the lot. Now the TVs are in the back. They’ve changed the layout since last summer so I might have to get creative with getting to the back. Everyone wants big TVs. There will be a TV left for me. Insignia 24 inch.”

At this point I make it to Best Buy. I check the back, no spots. I drive to the front, no spots. While at the front, I notice the line is quite short, like not even beyond the end of Best Buy. I circle back to the end, and I see people getting into a van. Bingo. I stalk the spot like a lion stalking an antelope. I back just far enough to give them space to pull out. I’m sitting in an “intersection” of the parking lot, and at this point, a big pick-up truck pulls up in one of the lanes. I could tell it was eyeing my spot. I’m driving a little vibe. This pick-up had to be twice my size. But this was my spot, and I wasn’t about to let it go. It pulls up a little, but I pull up even more. It pulls up a little again, and I completely block the intersection. I’m the alpha car. I get the spot.

My precious spot was at the spot furthest from the line. I get out of the car, lock the car, and jog over to the line, paying attention to the vehicles around me. I’m wearing my thick safety yellow hoodie with the reflective stripes so I know I’m visible. I weave between moving cars to get to the line. Here’s a video of me in line.

I get in quite quickly. I was expecting to wait in line for over 10 minutes, but I’m in the store within 5 minutes. I see the wall of display TVs, on the other side of the store, with all these obstacles in my way. I see an opening, strait to the cell phones. I briskly walk to the cell phone section. When I get to the cell phones, dead end. Well, it would be a dead end on a normal day, but today was not a normal day. There was a gap in the corner of the walls of merchandise just large enough for someone of my size to sneak through. Using my amazing powers of agility to step over a storage bin of stuff, I get through and make my way to the TVs. No products were harmed in the use of my secret passage.

I get to the TVs, and I see stacks of TVs, all different brands and sizes. I look for mine making a sweep of the area, but I don’t see the Insignia 24 inch for $79. Now as a man, I would normally not ask for help finding my stuff and just circle the area until I find what I want, but time was of the essence. I asked an employee where the Insignia 24 inch TVs were. I was standing right next to them, and there was a relatively large sign that said $79. I didn’t have time to feel embarrassed. I grab my TV, walk to the checkout, grab Big Bang Theory Season 6 on my way, and get in line. I’m expecting a 20 minute wait, but it was quite fast again, like 5-10 minutes. I pay for my stuff, and walk out to my car. Here’s a video I shot in the car.

I head back home with my score. All the guests are still there. They are impressed with the score. J-man was the most impressed. “My cell phone was $79, and it’s 21 inches shorter.” Yeah but your cell phone can do a lot more.

At about 9 PM, our guests leave. Only the guests that will go Black Friday with us stay. Normally the BF team is my mom, her friend, my brother, and me. Later in the night, one of my old high school friends will typically join us. Check out previous blogs for more information. This year however, things were different. This year, mom’s friend’s son, Z-man, and my brother’s friend J-man came along. J-man wanted to experience the American cultural phenomenon that is Black Friday and Z-man just wanted to see what it was like since he was now legally old enough to be out so late unsupervised. We split into 2 groups, mom and her friend, and the under 30 group. I took over as “ring leader” for the under 30 group. We wanted to go to K-Mart, Target, Best Buy, and then check Walmart for the scraps. Those 3 stores (K-Mart, Target, and Best Buy) happened to be within a 1/4 mile radius of each other. Sure, there’s a K-Mart and Target closer to our house, but those are much further away from each other.

First stop, K-Mart. Here, I wanted Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D and Animal Crossing New Leaf, both on 3DS. I’ve never been to this location before, but I found the electronics easily. They blocked off the electronics section and only let 5 or so people in at a time. They said it was because that’s where they were holding the door buster tablets, and to get the tablets you had to exchange a flyer you got from a wandering employee for the tablet. Understandable. I had to request my games because of this. I was able to get DKCR, but not Animal Crossing. Oh well. The rest of the group is doing some more browsing, and we’re in the store for about 30 minutes. My brother and J-man get headphones 50% off. It didn’t take very long to check out because there wasn’t many people there. Next stop, Target.

This particular Target was in a strip mall, next to Dunham’s Sporting Goods and across the street from Best Buy. At Target I wanted to get The Internship and Simpsons Season 18. They had The Internship, I got 1 of the 2 copies left, but they were out of Simpsons. Oh well. Z-man wanted to get Monster’s University. Here’s a funny thing with Target; the Black Friday deal movies were mixed in with the regular priced movies. While in line I saw that they had a special rack of BF deal only DVD and Blu-Rays, but in the normal DVD and Blu-Ray section of the store they also had the deals but they were mixed with the normal movies. At the price check there was a pile of movies that weren’t the correct edition. For example, the DVD version of The Internship was on special, but the Blu-Ray version wasn’t. Also, the Monster’s University DVD/Blu-Ray combo was on special, but not the stand alone DVD, the stand alone Blu-Ray, the collectors edition DVD/Blu-Ray combo, nor the Ultimate 3D Blu-Ray/normal Blu-Ray/DVD/digital copy combo. The line for the check-out was quite long. It snaked in and out of many aisles, most of which were personal hygiene. Here’s a video of the scene.

 

I told the team to bring me their stuff and I’ll wait in line. Z-man gave me Monster’s University and the money to pay for it. While I waited, everyone else went to Dunham’s. That was a good 45 minute wait. When checking out, there was a group of women that wanted to buy a bottle of wine. For some reason the computer said that they couldn’t legally sell alcohol at that time. The clerk checked with the manager, and he checked with someone even higher up, and they said “just ring it up as other.” Turns out that the group of women were from Canada and they wanted something alcoholic to drink in the hotel after the shopping was over. The rest of the team was done with Dunham’s by the time I finished checking out. In true stupid, young adult, 4 guys having fun late at night; my brother pulls up the car, doesn’t stop and instead coasts, I jump in while the car is moving, and yell “GO! GO! GO!” as if this was some sort of get away scene.

Before we head to Best Buy, we decide it would be a good idea to stop at 7-Eleven first. This way, we would be able to get some Slurpee sugar to keep the adrenalin up in addition to not having to make a left onto a really busy street. To get to Best Buy, turn left without a light onto a super busy street. To get to 7-Eleven, turn right onto the super busy street and then make a left at the light. This was J-man’s first Slurpee. After we get our frozen sugar, to Best Buy.

At this point it’s 10 PM. They have been open for 3 hours now. There was no line to get in. We just walked right in. Just about all the door busters are gone, including my TVs.

Luckily, I did all my needed shopping and I was just there for the ride at this point. I did a little looking around, just seeing what else was out there, but nothing really interested me. Since Black Friday is their busiest day of the year, all the terminal stations for each section become registers. I don’t know if they are retrofitted for today only or if they have this capability year round. Either way, there are registers in the middle of the store. My brother wanted to get a video camera, some accessories for that camera, and a couple of CDs. Unfortunately there was a problem checking out. Since we were at a center store register and no one was waiting for us, I suggested that they ring up the camera separate from everything else. That worked for the camera, but everything else, still problem. He “put back” the spare battery and that solved everything. He didn’t put enough money into his debit card account, so the problem was insufficient funds. I found out after all the shopping that I overdrew my account, but because I used it as credit instead of debit, I was able to overdraw because the transfer wasn’t instantaneous.

It’s 11 PM, all our main shopping was done. We head to Walmart in the off chance that there was some craziness to see. On Black Friday, Walmart has its doors open all night and they wrap the door busters in what is essentially cellophane. Read more about it in a previous blog here. This year, since they did their door buster’s so early, all the door busters were unwrapped and all the craziness was over. Only the “vultures” were left to see what we could still get after the initial crazy people. I went to the movie and game door buster scraps to see if anything caught my eye. I found Batman Arcam City and The Ratchet and Clank HD collection, both for PS3. I bought them on a whim since they’re both supposed to be great games. Then I see it, the one that got away, Animal Crossing New Leaf. When compared to other stores, this was the cheapest place to get it, and since it’s such a great game, I expected it to be gone. It was gone at K-Mart, and it was $5 more at K-Mart. And there wasn’t just 1 copy left. It was as if only half the games were gone. There had to be 2 shelves of it. I couldn’t believe it. I got my copy, looked around a little more, found the team, checked out, and left.

This year was definitely the most boring Black Friday. After all the shopping, we got back at 11:52 PM. It wasn’t even Friday yet. Since every store opened so early, all the crazy fun was done and over with by the time our Thanksgiving party was over. I think we even ended Thanksgiving earlier than we normally do, but that wasn’t enough to get there in time for the crazy. By doing door busters so early, all REALLY crazy people are done before the fairly crazy get there. Once the “normal” crazy are ready to head out, all the REALLY crazy and fairly crazy are gone. Most of the fun is diving over people once the cellophane comes off. Unless all 3 species of crazy are there at the same time, there’s no diving, there’s no reaching, there’s no fun. Normally my high school friend joins us at about 12:30-1:00 because his family’s Thanksgiving festivities last until around 11 PM. He wasn’t able to join us this year, and he’s the rest of the fun. I offered to do a second round of shopping just with him since this is pretty much the only time I get to see him in the short time I have with Thanksgiving break, but since it was just going to be the 2 of us and he wasn’t really interested in anything this year, he didn’t do Black Friday this year. I still had fun with the team this year, but it just wasn’t the same. Hopefully next year, all the stores open at midnight so the fun actually happens. Oh well.

Now for the rest of my short break.

Like every break, I came home on the train. Normally the train is 5-10 minutes late because another train had to pass it or it took longer than expected to load and unload passengers at the stops before mine. This time, the train was delayed 1 and a half hours. Apparently there was an obstruction on the track and it took them a while to move it. My train that was supposed to leave at 4 left at 5:30. I went through half a stack of newspaper comics waiting on the delay. Because the train got so behind schedule, it threw off the rest of the train routs. We had to let 2 different trains pass us, and that set us back another hour. I was scheduled to get to my destination at 7:30 PM, but instead got back at 10 PM. My grandparents were going to pick me up, everyone would get to see me and be happy I made it back, meet my brother’s friend, and it would be a little welcome home celebration. But since 10 PM is late for my grandparents and my brother wanted to see his best friend from high school, only my parents got to welcome me home. I’d get to see everyone tomorrow so no big deal.

Begin Thanksgiving Day. Mom, my brother, and J-man went to the parade. I got to wake up in my own house, eat a chocolate muffin, and enjoy being home. I watched some TV channels I don’t get up at school, played some video games, and use my electric blanket. I helped some with the getting set-up for the Thanksgiving festivities, mostly moving chairs and making sure there was enough room for people to visit. We expected people to show up at about 2 PM. My grandparents showed up at 2, and then their friends showed up at 2:15. My grandparent’s friend plays the accordion, and she brings it whenever there’s a family gathering. I jokingly told J-man “now this a normal part of Thanksgiving. Everyone’s grandparent’s has a friend that knows how to play the accordion and everyone gathers around and sings songs.” After the accordion, it was time for dinner. We had the normal turkey, stuffing, cranberries, and everything else. We also had ham and some kind of yogurt cucumber salad J-man made. We all enjoyed each other’s company. After dinner I went Black Friday shopping. You’ve already read about that.

The day following the shopping, Friday, I got my hair cut, hung out with mskate and later mbinski, the high school friend who missed Black Friday. Nothing super special there, just some fun with friends. I head back to college on Saturday, and now here we are. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

A robotastic skating weekend

Hey everyone, so how does robotics and figure skating go together? Yes, I could have built a figure skating robot. That would be cool, but no, that's not what I did this weekend. It's actually 2 different things; built a robot for a contest and watched a friend skate in a figure skating contest. I'll go in chronological order.

So here's my story with the robot, warning, engineering jargon ahead. It's the only way to tell the story properly. About 2 weeks ago, I was drafted to represent my college in the 4th annual Stryker Engineering Challenge over at Stryker Medical. In this challenge, a team of 4 engineering students competes against 5 other colleges by building a robot that can complete 3 challenges, the teams learn what their challenge is the day of the competition, and they have 17 hours to build a robot that will do these challenges, all for a $1000 scholarship and an interview with Stryker. The challenges change from year to year. This year, our challenges were "locate a magnet placed inside this rig and drill a hole in a piece of wood directly beneath it," "with a similar size piece of wood, cut a section that is exactly 2.54 CM, aka 1 inch," and "using LEDs running on different frequencies, be able to raise and lower a power Stryker emergency stretcher to make a bridge to cross between 2 tables." The first 2 events determined the order at which each team would compete in the final bridge event and at what handicap. Speed and accuracy were the 2 deciding factors as to the order and handicap. Accuracy was weighted higher than speed.

Before we started, we were given the run down as to what Stryker does, the history of Stryker, and some of the tools and equipment they've made in the past. Sorry, I can't really give you more details beyond that. Confidentiality and stuff. I don't want to get sued for leaking trade secrets. It was really cool. The events I mentioned earlier, well they based them off of actual medical situations and when you would use the tools we had to use to make our cuts. The drilling a hole was about cleft pallets and how surgeons use the drill to make precise holes in that surgery. The cut was about removing an under bite and how surgeons use the saw we used to cut bone. The LED signalling of the stretchers, well that I think was more showing off their tech. But hey, it was cool. During the build, we were given 2 "office hour appointments with our professor." With that, we could ask a professional Stryker engineer any question and he would answer it like a college professor, by not directly giving you the information, but cryptically answering it making you think. If there was something flat out "hey, this isn't working and I've tried everything, even your cryptic answers," then he would kind of answer directly, but other than that, cryptic or "google it." We also had a resident Stryker staff member to answer questions about the rules, what is and isn't allowed, and basically be our connection to the officials, but he couldn't help us beyond that. So let's begin the night.

So we are able to start the build at 8:30. We get our stuff and go to our conference room we will be working in. Since my specialty is product design and concept generation with a minor in build, I took the lead as to how we were going to design the robot. I had us break down each event and what we would need to be doing, paying extra attention to not letting people give "hows" at that moment in time and only letting us say the "whats." Once the whats were cemented, we started to focus on the hows. As a group, we only really stayed together for the general frame of the robot. And that's when we came up with our genius idea of "3 wheel frame with 2 drive wheels and a caster wheel." This would give us a zero degree turning radius, and that proved very effective in the 3rd challenge. The first thing we built was the caster wheel. One other member and I built it. After that we assembled a rough frame to make sure that it worked, and after adding a direction bar, it did. We also did group brain storming as to how we would make the robot do the different tasks. We came up with the general ideas as to what we would do, and we went from there. This is when we basically broke up into teams.

Here's how the teams went down, one member worked on programing the controller and motors, one  member worked on the electrical circuitry for the LED lights and the magnet sensor, and one other member and I worked on the physical building of the robot. We had the engineering drawings of the rig that holds the wood and from their we based our building. We went with a design that, when the robot was in place in front of the rig, it would move the tool at hand left and right, and then it would move the tool in further to do the actual drilling or cutting, and do it much more precisely than if we just ran the robot into it. At one point we were thinking about adding an up and down 3rd axis, but then decided that it's just overcomplicating things when we all we need is for things to stay at one height. So now our task was "how will we make a device that moves a tool along the x-axis and the move along the y-axis?" Us build guys went with "first it moves along the x-axis (left and right), then it moves along the y-axis (in and out)." We decided to keep the frame and we made before, it was just what we needed. We had to choose between a chain and a gear system. To keep things doable, we went with a gear system. Next we had to choose between making the rigged track stationary or making the gears stationary. We also had to think of how we were going to do this double carriage device. We spent about 3 hours trying to figure that out. We even brought in the programing guy for consulting.

Before I tell you about how we did the different axis motions, I need to tell you about our first major mile stone. The programing guy got the motors running with the speed and control we needed to move a robot. We hooked up the control unit and motors to the robot, set-up the wireless communication and controller, and got our first robot movement. We were able to drive the robot. We had a wireless robot. That was so cool. Now back to our regularly scheduled blog.

We eventually decided on doing the x-axis motion first. The other build guy came up with a great idea for that and we decided we'd make that and let the chips fall where they may. We went with a stationary drive gear system, where the gears stay mounted in one place, and the carriage is on a base with rigged pieces that match the gears. We had 2 drive gears, both attached to the same drive shaft and and lining up so they provide front and back points of stability. We also had 2 gears on both sides that freely spun to add lateral stability. It worked out really well. We had a hiccup getting the 2 drive gears to align properly, but I eventually figured it out and we got a successful x-axis movement. We noticed that there wasn't really anything keeping the carriage from falling off, so we added some guard bars. Worked great.

Now we needed to figure out how to hold the tools and get them to move forward. I grab 2 L-plates and put them together in a u shape and said "how about this to hold the tool?" It's about time for our first office hours appointment. The programing guy was having some trouble getting the software to run properly, and that was a technical issue and the professor was able to answer his question directly. The electrician had some trouble, but his answer was "google it, it's all online." Ours, we had him look at our design, and gave us some cryptic suggestions, and told us that "cutting off zip ties counts as adding/removing parts, and that's against the rules." The cryptic was "isn't there something in your kits that would hold it better than a zip tie?" And with that, we were done with the office hours. We went back, went with slightly smaller L-bars, and then used hose clamps to hold the tools in place. That worked out well. Really well. With that out of the way, now it was "how will we get it to move along the y-axis?"

Somehow, the motor to drive the y-axis movement had to move with the x-axis carriage, and that proved to be a big challenge. We didn't have much room on the x-carriage, nor really the parts, for a similar set-up with the y-carriage. So how will we do this. After some brain storming, lots of trial and error, we came up with using a worm gear and rigged piece to control the movement and figured out a way to mount that motor to the x-carriage. Once that was done, it was all fine tuning from there.

We had some trouble keeping the y-carriage steady, and there were other things, but this was our primary focus at the moment. At this point, it was time for our second office hours. We took the robot to the professor and basically said, "what are your thoughts? Let us know what you think." We showed him how the robot drove. We showed him the x and y movement. He pointed out how we had a 3-bar stability system set-up with the x-carriage, and he suggested maybe something similar to that to solve the y-carriage problem. He was really impressed though. We basically spent the entire office hour testing on the test course he had set-up.

After the office hour, we added a stability bar to the y-carriage. That really helped in keeping it steady. Now we just need to get the rest of the robot set-up. We came up with a claw design that would grab on to the sides of the rig. Now, even if we lost friction with our massive wheels, we would still be able to keep driving the tools forward. That came in handy. Now we just needed a mount for the magnet sensor. The other build guy was burned out at this point. I built the sensor mount rather quickly and we were able to get it on the robot easily. Now all that's left is getting the circuitry and controls on it.

It's now 11 AM, we've been working on this for 14.5 hours strait. Our programer had the programing done and our electrician had the electrical work done. Now it was just getting it together. The team got it all together and did some tests. At this point I've been up for 24 strait hours, and I don't do well on no sleep. I did pretty well up until then because I was running on caffeine and a raw drive to keep working; mostly the raw drive. I started crashing, but I knew I couldn't even take a small nap because then I wouldn't be able to wake up. I didn't have much to do because all my stuff was pretty much done. We had some troubles with the LEDs. That sucked because we weren't able to get the test sensor to read an "up" signal. We were able to get a "down" signal, but no up. That really sucked because we're coming in to zero hour, but we were able to successfully do challenge 1 and just hoped for the best with challenge 2. We worked on getting the lights set up on the robot, and after some hot gluing, we got the lights set-up on the robot so that if we get the lights working, the sensors will be able to read it.

Now it's zero hour, the robot is as ready as it'll ever be, and we'll just have to go with it. We turned in our robot, cleaned up the work space, and got ready for our tour of the facility. We got to see the cafeteria, the "what is Stryker" room, and some conference rooms before the challenge began, but not the actual build line. After an all night build session, we got a tour of the build line. Again, no details due to confidential information. Sorry guys.

Now is the time for the main event, the 3 challenges. We get our robot and set it up at the designated site. Here's the rules, we can't add or remove any parts during the competition. This does not include the $1,000 medical drill and the $1,000 medical saw. I don't think they'd very much appreciate us dropping $2000 worth of equipment 3 feet off the floor and having a 20 pound robot fall directly on it. Those we can remove and exchange between challenges. We can however, make adjustments to the robot between challenges, or if need be, during the challenge for  2 minute penalty.

First up, the drill a hole challenge. As it turns out, some wiring got loose in transit and our set-up that tells us if we're over the magnet (an LED lighting up when over it) failed to light up. Even after we scanned the entire section twice, we decided to cut our losses and just make our hole right dead center. Now we're have essentially a 50-50 chance of hitting it. I don't know the exact probability, but whatever. We had a little trouble of the magnet sensor getting in the way of the drill. What we decided to do was just ram it as fast as we can, and keep going at it until we were through. We also had some trouble with the drill vibrating. We made a rather big hole, but we were able to make a hole. We were the first ones done, and we were the most accurate, by luck. We got first place in that event.

The second challenge, cut a chunk of wood exactly 1 inch long. Before we started, we had time to make adjustments. We moved the magnet sensor to a different part of the robot so it wouldn't be in the way. We also put the saw on. Now it's time to make the cut. We roll up to the wood rig, and start making the cut. The saw wiggled itself low and wasn't making cuts through. We then took a time penalty and made some adjustments. This time, we got it up, but it went a little to high. We took another time penalty, made a second adjustment, and we were able to make clean cuts through the one side. Now we just needed to get the second side cut through. I was watching on the back side to let them know if we made it through, and that's something I just did halfway through the event. I did it unconsciously. I've been up for 28 strait hours at this point. I had no conscious thoughts to be found. I'm running on basic engineer and team player instinct. We had to make 2 more adjustments for a total of 8 minutes of penalties, but they were worth it. We placed second in that event, being almost spot on and finishing 2nd, penalties included. And we didn't practice this event at all. Not to shabby for not practicing.

(Insert explanation of the points here.) We were only 8 points behind the team in first. We were in second place. We only had an 8 second handicap when going into the final round.

Now is time for the final, winner takes all event. In this timed event, the team that crossed the finish line first wins the scholarship and interview. We went in knowing we were having some troubles with our signals. Well, as it turns out, the signal we needed was the signal we couldn't get right. We couldn't get the up signal. We rolled right up to the sensor, shined the light right where we needed it, but no up. After all the other teams crossed the finish line, we tried to suicide, but the caster wheel caught us. We just put the robot on the other side of the gap. We lost, we admitted defeat. We just wanted to cross the finish line. Technically we were supposed to start back at the starting point if we go off the table, but no one cared at then, the contest was over, they let us have our finish. We fought valiantly though.

So after the 3 events, we got interviewed for a local news paper. The reporter might have just went to get everyone, but here's what made us feel much better, everyone was interested in our design. Everyone else used a 4 wheel design. We're the only guys that did a 3 wheel design. We were answering so many questions as to what we did. That made us feel good. We may not have won, but no one was interested in the wining design. They wanted to see our design. I guess we could say we were the "fan favorite."
Here are some pictures I got.

So I get back to mane campus Friday evening. I eat dinner, shower, and after being up for 32 strait hours, I went to sleep. Here's a quick little video I filmed after 32 strait hours of no sleep.
I slept for 16 hours.

So now it's Saturday. The event is over, so why am I still talking about the weekend? Well now it's time for the skating part of this weekend.

So one of my high school friends is a figure skater. I've talked about her a couple of times on my blogs. Remember mskate? Well the team she's on was in a competition that was hosted by my college. Since I live basically next door to the ice arena she was competing in, of course I'm going to go watch and support her. I'm not about to pass of a chance to see a good high school friend when she's right next door. She competed in 2 events, individual and team, both about 12 hours apart from each other.

The first event was the individual routine event, and was at 9:35 AM. Now normally I'm not up and moving that early on a Saturday, let alone alert enough to be able to find a place I've never been to before. Yes, I've never been to the ice arena at my college. I've never had a reason to before today. I look up directions online and the directions looked easy enough. I leave an hour early, just in case I get lost. As it would happen, I needed that extra time because the directions I got were crap. They took me to some catholic church that's close to East campus. I turn around and decide to follow the signs that say "ice arena this way." That was much better. I got there with enough time to spare. I walk in and find an open seat. She did very well based on my "the fact that you can skate backwards is amazing" point of reference.

After the event, I went out in the hall to wait for her to come out. While out in the hall, I ran into a former band mom. Apparently her daughter also figure skates and was at the competition too. She asked if I went to the same college as mskate. I replied with "no I'm here, this is just a 15 minute walk from my dorm." There was a little other small talk, but that was the most memorable part.

So mskate and the rest of her team come out to the hall, mainly to check their scores. Mskate sees me, we say our hellos and she introduces me to some of her teammates. Basically things were "Hi, I'm an old high school friend, I'm here because I'm local." We exchanged the usual "how have things been? what's new?" while we waited for the scores to be posted. Good news, she got 3rd place in her section of the individuals. Looks like I wasn't the only one that thought she did well.

After she got her medal, mskate and her mom took me back to my dorm, but we took the long way back so I could give the driving tour of the campus. That was fun, and it basically took us all the way around campus. I got the stuff the brought up for me from home, and I showed mskate my dorm. Apparently she's never seen a real dorm room before. She was rather surprised with the level of mess. She got to see the couple of things she sees when we Skype and that I talk about. After the grand dorm tour, they left to get ready for the next event and all the team stuff that goes with it, and I worked on my paper.

Fast forward 8-10 hours, and it's time for the team event. This event is a team event. This time, the team picks certain members to perform specific tricks, like the axle thing. She asked me to record the event. Sure, no problem. I know how to do proper camera work with the rule of 3rds and all that, and I'm here so why not. I get there and this time I was able to find her mom to sit with. It must have been nerves or adrenalin or something that caused mskate to forget that I needed her phone to be able to record it for her. Luckily I was able to use her mom's phone. Afterwards she felt rather foolish forgetting that crucial aspect.

In the team event, her team placed first. Woo hoo. Though I do feel rather conflicted, since one of the opponent teams is my college. Eh whatever, I don't follow sports. I'm just glad my friend's team won. After the event they drop me off at my dorm, but this time we take the short way, and that was just a 4 minute drive.

It was good seeing her again, in person, no matter how short the time was. It would have been fun to be able to actually hang out, but whatever. I was dead tired on Friday and went to bed at 6:30 PM and she was busy with skating things all throughout Saturday, and they left on Sunday, so no time. Oh well, I never get visitors so it's more than I normally get. Plus, there's always thanksgiving. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

If you noticed a change in my writing style between the engineering section and the skating section, that's because they were written on 2 separate days, at 2 different levels of brain fried.

March for life 2013

 Hey everyone. I just did the March For Life with my Students for life group. For those of you who don't know, it's a big pro-life march every year on the anniversary of roe vs. wade. We march down the mall to the supreme court in peaceful protest. I was able to make it this year, and it will probably be the only year, because as an engineer, I have no time during the weekend for anything, and always seem to have Friday classes. We leave on Thursday, so of course I'm left out, because engineering classes you just can't miss. I have no classes on Friday this semester, and the only class I had to miss was my blow off of an econ class. So with the back story given, time for the actual trip.

Thursday
So I had some classes, but after those, I gathered my stuff and walked down to the parking log we were meeting at. After some aimless looking around, people started showing up. Once everyone was given their car assignments and packed up, we headed out, for part 1.

Here's how it went down, we had to drive from school to get to the bus rendezvous point. Once we get to that point, we get on the big charter but with the other students for life groups. We have 4 other schools with us, all headed to D.C. But the rendezvous point isn't close. It was a little over an hour away. It was an OK ride there. The car was quite the conversationalist. I didn't need to break out the entertainment at all.

We got to the point about 2 hours before the bus. Since there was an Applebee's close by, we decided to eat there. I split a 2 for $20 with one of the other group members. I haven't had real food since Christmas Break. Taco Bell has realer food than my dorm caf food. That steak, fries, broccoli, and mozzarella sticks tasted so good. Here's a reaction video.

After dinner, we got on the bus and shipped out. My friend and I prayed a rosary for a safe journey. After that, I pulled out my DSiXL and played this Legend of Zelda 4 Swords game that was free for the 25th anniversary of Legend of Zelda then played Feel The Magic XX/XY. It's a fun game. Once I tired of those, I read some of Michael Moore Is a Big Fat Stupid White Man. Good book. Until tomorrow.

Friday
Well it's past 12 midnight, so I can consider this part of Friday. We stopped at a truck stop, with the laundromat, the game room with some slot machines, showers, restaurants, and the like. It's 4:30, everything but the gift shop is closed in there. But who cares? The game room was a little boring since they didn't have pinball, my favorite arcade game. One priest that was with one of the other groups, young guy, got really into the game room and the name. It was called "Trucker's Ally," and every person he talked to he said, "welcome to trucker's ally, what goes on in trucker's ally stays in trucker's ally," an a playful way like someone would say about Vegas. Just having fun with the lethargic, tired college kids at 4:30 in the morning. Kind of funny. In the laundromat, there was a TV with cable and movie channels. I found it and decided to see what was on Adult Swim at 5 AM. Turns out it was King of the Hill, and an episode I haven't seen, but the bus was ready to go. I had to leave it. Oh well.

So we get into DC at about 9 AM. It was a long bus ride. When we got to DC, we went to our hotel and checked in and unloaded our stuff. It was also a time to get ready for the march that would be happening in a couple hours, and eat breakfast if we could find it. I did a little looking around and I found a Dunkin Doughnuts. I had 2 chocolate frosted doughnuts. After that I went back to my room to get myself bundled up for the march. Put on a pair of PJ pants under my jeans, got my nice warm hat, and put on my march for life shit. I was ready to head out, but I missed my group to head down to the mall.

At first I wondered around close to my hotel to see if I was close to the corner I had to be at. I wasn't. I asked the front desk people how to get there, and they told me how to get there and gave me a map. Had to be at least half a mile walk since I walked 15 or so blocks. Good thing the streets in DC, at least where I was at, are labeled with numbers going one way and letters going the other and where I had to be was at a number and a street right off a letter. I'm just walking down through DC going "17, 16, 15 I'm heading in the right direction number wise, and j, i, k and right direction letter wise." I walked by a group of Asian tourists, and a couple of them were looking at me and chuckling. I did look like something else with my puffy yellow winter coat and heavy Russian hat walking down the street with a map in my hands. Glad I probably made their trips.

I found my group and we got our signs. Once we all got together, we went over to the big rally site and saw the speakers. There were some good speakers, but one sticks out the most, Rick Santorum. That's right, Republican candidate during the Primary of the 2012 election, Rick Santorum. That was so cool to see him in person even if it was 200 feet away. Now I've seen both Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. All I need to do now is see Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, and Rick Perry and I'll have seen all the big candidates from the 2012 Republican Primary. I did see Rand Paul at the gathering and his name is close to Ron Paul right?

After the rally, it was time for the real march. Our group worked really hard to stay together. We got separated a little at times, but we regrouped easily. Get this, there were estimated 650,000 people there. Over half a million people. This was the first time I've seen that many people in one place before that I can recall. It was amazing to see that many people in one place. Definitely put some perspective to things. We were able to make it to congress and most of us decided to duck out because we were getting hungry and I really needed to use the bathroom. Some of our guys went all the way to the supreme court but I was not one of them.

Our initial plan was to go to this Irish Pub for dinner, but then we decided for lunch, but then they were super crowded so we went to this great hole in the wall burger place. It was a little pricy, like most places in DC, but it was really good. Then again, I haven't had a real burger for months. But from what I remember, it was really good by normal standards.

After lunch, we went back to the hotel, and to get back, we took the metro, or to normal people, the subway. We don't have subways in my state, so none of us really know how to use it. We spent maybe 5 minutes figuring out what line to get on, then 15 minutes trying to figure out the fair cards. Good thing the attendant was able to explain it to us. Once we figured out how to get through the entry gate, we had to figure out which side of the station to get on. This one had the boarding zones on the outer sides and the trains coming down the middle. We got on the wrong side, so had to get to the other side. Was funny since one of our group members was a quarter of the way down the escalator and decided to run back up it to catch us. Riding the subway for me is always fun, just because I never do and they go so fast.

We found our way back to the hotel, and once I got back to the hotel, I watched an episode of Gold Rush, and then crashed and burned at 6 PM. It was going to be just a quick nap until it was time to go on the monument tour, but I was out cold until one of my roommates for the weekend came back at 11:30 PM from the monument tour. After that I brushed my teeth and took a shower and went back to bed.

Saturday
This was a good day. First thing in the morning, I had breakfast. I had waffles, fruit loops, and whole milk. Oh whole milk. After that, we all gathered up and got on the bus to go to the conference.

The conference was fun and informative. I got some cool stuff from the different pro-life organizations that came. Mostly flyers and literature, but got some pens and a mini Frisbee. I think it's for Frisbee golf, but whatever. We had some great speakers in the beginning, one of whom is a conservative, pro-life movie maker. He premiered his new short film, Crescendo, at the conference. It was about 15-30 minutes, and really powerful. It told the story of a young 18th century woman in Germany who's life is just horrible. Her first husband died, her second husband is a cheating sleazeball, and to make matters more complicated, she's pregnant. She decides she want's the 18th century equivalent of an abortion, but before she can take the potion/concoction thing to end her 9 month pregnancy, she goes into labor when a piano crashes through her window. I can't go on because it would spoil the ending. But I will leave you with this, it's powerful.

Lunch was good. I had a ham sandwich and a sierra mist. Still have the can since that's aluminum that my family will have fun with in the forge. After lunch it was time for the different workshops. I went to the one that was about exposing and defunding planned parenthood. We had a former planned parenthood manager there talking about all the different shady practices that PP has engaged in. To help prove it, she had her old pay stub showing the exact location that she worked at. After that, I went to one that was on pro-life apologetics, where some of the really convincing pro-choice arguments were shown how bad they were. After that one, I went to the "spreading the pro-life message with new media." As a blogger/vlogger, this one I felt I'd really enjoy, and I did. It focused more on Facebook, twitter, and tumbler than blogs and youtube, but whatever. Cool thing, apparently one guy who runs a pro-life apologetics tumbler is a semi-known user that was in the audience When it was time for the audience to give their advice, he told his story and his tumbler screen name, and one girl exclaimed "That's You!" I found that funny.

After those, time for dinner. It was pizza, and only of slightly higher quality than dorm pizza. After that, time for award ceremony for the different pro life groups. The awards were given out by the Student's for life of America president Kristan Hawkins. She's also gave a speech during the opening ceremonies before lunch. She's a very animated person, and has a signature bullhorn. These awards, best new group, most outstanding group of the year, most outstanding individual of the year, really amazing stories for why they're receiving them. I'll get the video up as soon as I get clearance. After the awards, really funny thing happened. All the group leaders rushed up to the stage and started doing the Gangnam Style dance. Bunch of pro-life, probably America loving young adults, doing the dance of a Korean pop song made by a guy who hates America and only started tolerating us once he started getting all the money from us; a tad ironic don't ya think? A pro-life rock group, don't know their name so sorry on that, played music and that was fun. Catelynn and Tyler came and gave a little speech. It was so cool seeing them again.

After the conference, we went back to the hotel. The people from my school were talking about shopping and other feminine things, and the people from the other group on our bus were talking about TV from my childhood and other good forms of entertainment. I went over and started talking with them. It was fun. Talked about the different shows on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network and Disney Channel before the Hanna Montana effect all from back in the 90s. Eventually we got onto politics, and this is why I love being with pro-life or republican groups; we just started talking politics and how we all had conservative views on the matter. We also talked about how awesome it is being in groups like this where we share similar views. Good time. Got back to the room, watched some TV, then went to bed.

Sunday
Sunday was our "Go to church then come home" day. Since most of us are Catholic, and if not Christian, most of us went to The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, aka, the really nice church outside of DC. Getting there was fun. We took the Subway, and as I mention again, not from a place with subways. We had our fun trying to figure out how much to put on our tickets. But riding the subway was the fun part. It was maybe a 30 minute ride, and the subway goes really fast if you don't know. One guy that was with our group had some real fun on it. He came up with "Subway Surfing." To subway surf, you stand up while the train is moving, and not hold on to anything. Train flying down the tracks at 40-50 MPH and not holding on to anything, it was a great idea. So great, I joined in. Luckily no one was stupid enough to the point of us actually hurting ourselves, but definitely not a smart move.

Once we got to our stop, we went to the church, and it was amazing. Just beautiful. It was kind of fun watching this group of 30 people trying to find seats together. Mass was good. Here are some pictures of this amazing church.

Want more, click here.

After mass, we had time to explore the church more. This is when I got most of the pics. The basement was really cool. It had a crypt and a little chapel underneath the big church. They also have a cafe and 2 gift shop/book shops. Really cool.

After we had about an hour to explore, it was time to head back. We had about half our group together ready to leave. I mass texted the other group members saying we were leaving. I tried to slow them but they wanted to go. There was some trouble because we didn't put enough money on our fair cards so we had to put more money on it. That was some confusion, causing us to miss the train. Well we found our way up to the platform, and waited. Right before our train came in, the other group members responded with "we're on our way." 2 of us, me being one of them, decided to wait around for them. Well, we did, and once the train left, we went down to the entrance and was talking the way to get the proper fair over the gate since we already paid and they didn't. That was fun. We eventually got them all through, and rode back to the station closest to our hotel. None of us had a strong concept of where we were, but we found our way back fine.

We packed up, and got on the bus, and started our journey home at about 1. Some of us found a regional planned parenthood headquarters and prayed outside it. I was not one of them because I waited around at the subway for our group members which set me back at least 30 minutes. The ride back was cool. We stopped at the big trucker stop we stopped at on the way there. It was different being there in the day when everything is open. I had Dairy Queen burger meal and a butter finger mini blizzard. Took the entire time to wait in line and they got my order wrong. I think I've developed a  6th sense where before I even unwrap my burger, I can tell if there's anything else on it other than pickles. Minor set back, but whatever. We watched friends and that was fun. Love that show. If I knew we'd have DVDs to watch, I'd have brought some of mine. Oh well. We stopped at 2 rest stops in Ohio. Since all rest stops in Ohio look the same, I wasn't sure if we were in the same as on the way there, but I quickly saw that we weren't because the pinball machines weren't the same. I would know since pinball is my all time favorite arcade game. On the second stop I played a round of family guy pinball. I even won a free game. That is probably in part due to the fact that they don't get many good players coming in and setting high scores. That was cool.

We arrived at our check point to get in cars. There was one problem, one of the group member's cars had a flat tire. That was a fun experience, sarcasm. I was ready to get on my hands and knees ready to put on the doughnut. We didn't though. We went to the 24 hour McDonald's. I got a fountain drink. We were there for about an hour and a half, so 2:30 until 4 AM. Turns our McDonald's changes to breakfast at 3 AM. We left at 4 AM, and it was about a 2 hour car ride back to college. Enjoy a sneak peak at the vlog that I'll get out eventually of the ride back.

We got back at about 6AM. I'm glad that I told my roommate to leave the door unchained. I slept until 12:30 PM. Now begins my week back.

Now for a few reflections. I've done trips with school before, but they were in middle and high school so we were minors, and as minors, we had chaperones. Here it was kind of weird, since same sort of set up, but because we're all adults, no chaperones and the trip leader was our students for life president. Just a little weird for me. Sure am glad I did it, since I'm not sure I'll be able to do it again. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.