Woah. It’s been a while. How long? Four, almost five months? I’ve got a bit of catchup to do. Anyways, hello, and welcome to another wonderful blog written by me, the WAKWIR himself! A lot of things have changed since my last blog, for instance, the amount of time I spend on piano compared to playing video games is almost at a ratio of ten to one now, when four months ago, it was completely reversed. Well, let's get to the main events! I'll do a small recap on most of what happened in between my last post and now, but I’ll go into more detail on some bigger things.
So, for some prior knowledge, I was in about 4 different activities over the winter (Knowledge Bowl, One Act, Robotics, and Speech) and now that it’s getting closer to the end of the school year, it’s sad to say that all of these activities have wrapped up except for Robotics. I really enjoyed all of the activities I was in, and I also learned a lot from them. Doing multiple activities that always conflict with each other is a lot to handle on top of school. So definitely next year I’ll try to stick to my absolute favorite activities and go from there.
I’ll get to Robotics a bit later, but first I participated in some other pretty cool stuff that wasn't directly related to my other 4 extra activities. I participated in a trombone quartet (I got the first part, too) and our group ended up getting a Superior rating for our performance, which is the highest rating that you can get. I also went on a couple of band trips to play with the pep band for our girls' and boys' hockey teams at the state tournament. Oh, and more recently, I realized how cool ragtime piano music is, so I have spent the last two months learning and memorizing "The Entertainer" by Scott Joplin. (The original version, not an arrangement.)
Since it is also almost the end of the school year, it also happens to be a new trimester too. Waaaaaaayyyyyy back at the end of March, trimester three started, giving me some new classes. I no longer have Honors English, and Algebra II this year (I’ll have MORE difficult classes next year) and my Current Events class also finished up. These were replaced with Spanish 1B, Professional Communications, and Competitive Sports (a gym class - gotta get those gym credits to graduate :D). My remaining classes - Honors Biology, Homeroom, Band, and US History - all stayed the same. And I’ve got to say, I really enjoy this trimester’s schedule. It’s not exactly a laid-back trimester (because of Robotics), but it isn’t as overworking as my first two.
Now, Robotics. It’s been the activity I’ve put the most time into, with over 130 total practice hours this season. And I think it’s paid off too. I didn’t really have a set role in Robotics, I really just jumped around trying new things to see what I liked. I did some work on our robot, I did some work with Public Relations (Thanks, Annie!!!!!) some electrical work, and scouting (I did this mainly at competition.)
Our team went to two regionals: one in Grand Forks, and one in Minneapolis. At Grand Forks, our team won the Chairman’s Award, which qualified us for the First Championships in Houston Texas which we went to last week. We have one final competition in exactly a week in Minneapolis for MSHSL State Robotics. I’d say so far, the highlight of Robotics was going to Houston for the Championships.
The overall trip to Houston was fantastic. Our team took a charter bus down to Houston with another team. The bus ride in total was about 27 hours one way. It was a long, uncomfortable ride, but it got us down there. Before the main competition started, we went to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, and me being a space nerd, it was like a dream come true. I got to see multiple different spaceships, including the monstrous Three Stage Saturn V Rocket. It was really awesome. I really want to go there again, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be in Houston again, so it was good to experience it at least once.
The main event - the Robotics Championships - I’d say was just as cool. And big. Very very big. There were tons of people there. There were about 450 teams for Robotics, but there were also hundreds of other teams at the World Championships for First Lego League, and First Tech Challenge as well. I went to the innovation fair multiple times to check out what cool tech booths they had. One of my favorite booths was the Novelis booth where they demonstrated crushing aluminum cans that they later made into recycled aluminum. I checked out tons and tons of different robots. I got to touch some of the best robots in the world, like The Cheesy Poofs and the Robowranglers. I got lost a few times and just had a huge blast. On the last day of the competition, our team wasn’t selected to play in the playoffs, so we had an explore day, where we could just go around the area and explore. Oh, and if I didn’t mention it, the whole event was at the George R Brown Convention Center. Probably one of my favorite stories about being there is that I got saran-wrapped to a tree.
Now, before you start asking, yes this was all planned out, and done somewhat carefully, and I got out all nice and well. There was a team from Michigan with a huge roll of Saran-Wrap, and they were talking amongst themselves about how to get rid of it. So, me being me, I decided to gallivant over to them and ask the team if they could use that saran wrap to pin me to a tree. They must have thought I was crazy, and so did all of my friends who were with me at the time. Eventually, a few people from other teams and some of my friends started to clump around me and started to get saran-wrapped themselves. Oh, and did I mention it attracted a large crowd too? I was actually pretty proud of myself. We eventually ran out of Saran Wrap, and what followed was a huge effort to get everybody out of the Saran Wrap, especially me. It took about 5 to 10 min to get me out, and once I finally crawled out from my Saran Wrap prison, everybody cheered. It was truly a great moment.
Later that day, the final matches that determined who the World Robotics Champions were ended - The Cheesy Poofs, and we re-embarked on another 27-hour bus ride home. There wasn’t really much to do on the bus ride, so I decided to edit a few pictures and work on some music on my computer. We got back late Sunday night at around midnight (we left Saturday evening), which was a bit of a pain because we had to go to school early the next morning. The only thing that followed was a bit of catch-up work for school after I came back.
So that was really about everything that happened. School schedule changes, activities wrapping up, music stuff, and lots of robotics. The upcoming month has a lot of exciting things going on, so maybe stay tuned for that later in the month, and I think that’s it. I will see you all very soon, and I hope you all have a lovely Saturday. (It’ll be raining most of the day where I live so it won’t be that lovely, but you all know what I mean.)
David, aka Wannaskan Almanac Kid Writer-in-Residence (WAKWIR)
On This Day
Historic Highlights (credits)
1993 - CERN announces that World Wide Web protocols will remain free
By offering the software required to operate a web server with an open license, the European organization ensured its dissemination, and the WWW flourished.
1993 - Tennis ace Monica Seles is stabbed by an obsessed fan
Although the stab wound proved to be relatively harmless, the psychological ramifications meant that Seles did not play any tournaments for over two years.
1975 - The fall of Saigon marks the end of the Vietnam War
As Communist forces gained control of Saigon, South Vietnamese President Duong Van Minh, who had only been in office for 2 days, surrendered unconditionally.
1916 - Germany and its World War I allies become the first countries to use daylight saving time (DST)
The rationale was to save energy to aid the war effort. Other European countries, such as the United Kingdom, first introduced DST later that year.
1789 - George Washington becomes the first U.S. President
Washington took the oath of office on the balcony of Federal Hall in New York City. In the United States, he is venerated as one of the country's founding fathers.
Happy Birthday to You!🎶
1982 - Kirsten Dunst, American actress, singer
1959 - Stephen Harper, Canadian politician, 22nd Prime Minister of Canada
1956 - Lars von Trier, Danish director, screenwriter
1933 - Willie Nelson, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, actor
1777 - Carl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician
Remembering You
1983 - Muddy Waters, American singer-songwriter, guitarist
1980 - Luis Muñoz MarÃn, Puerto Rican poet, politician, 1st Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
1883 - Édouard Manet, French painter
1030 - Mahmud of Ghazni
Explore, stay dry, and make it a great Saturday.
Kim
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