Kiwis win World Robotics Champs in Dallas - Technology - Video - 3 News

Kiwis win World Robotics Champs in Dallas - Technology - Video - 3 News

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My plans for updating while we were away were foiled by the seconding of my laptop to programming duties. Can't really complain as we came home with five trophies including the world champion title and the coveted judges' award for outstanding team robot.
Brief thoughts...

The trip was fantastic, it was great finally getting to Disneyland and the boys loved every second of both it and California Adventure.

We loved San Diego Zoo and seeing the panda cub was unbelievable.

The competition itself was more intense than we could have possibly imagined. We had been warned but nothing could have prepared us for the frenetic pace and the tension of watching the matches that would take us through to the final in a packed arena, hosted by Grant Imahara from Mythbusters. Every Kiwi team was screaming their lungs out in support. We were louder than the impressively loud Puerto Rican team!!

Spent yesterday shopping in Los Angeles, checking out Hollywood and having a slightly scary trip on the subway.

We have banned the words robotics and programming for this next term, but then we will be back starting to prepare for next year's game which looks a lot more complicated than this year's.

Decided that I could get into this travelling lark despite my dislike of flying.

It is however wonderful to be home.

Let's hear it for the internet

We are now all booked - flights,hotels, Disneyland, San Diego Zoo, bus tour of LA and I didn't talk to a travel agent once. (Well I did at the beginning but he was not very useful).

We forget so quickly how things were done before the net. We used to have to go a travel agent and wait for them to come up with everything, based often only on the companies they deal with. Now,thanks to Trip Advisor you can scutinise every lodging in a given area and see what people really think of them.

Every detail of your trip can be checked out, Google maps and Google Earth mean that you can make sure your hotel is where you want it to be. But timetables, shuttles, trains you name it - it's all there.

So I have a folder full of important bits of paper, and a very stressed credit card.

Time has sped up this week. Suddenly there are lots of last minute bits and pieces to finish off, masses of forms to fillout, and of course working out how we get the extra baggage associated with two robots over the States.

We are however nearly there and I have today and tomorrow to sort the rest out and pack. It's one advantage of geeting up at 4.45am - you can get a lot done!

End of the Supermom Era by Lenore Skenazy on Creators.com - A Syndicate Of Talent

End of the Supermom Era by Lenore Skenazy on Creators.com - A Syndicate Of Talent

Looks like it's now OK to have a messy car, thank goodness for that!

Here we go again

I'm sure we said never again, but this morning the alarm went off at 4.45am and I staggered out of bed to wake a sleepy 13 year old and we headed off the the pool for a 5.30am start. Hmmm. It's not as if we didn't know what we were letting ourselves in for. Three years of driving our daughter to swim training before she got her licence has been forever etched on my brain (and added wrinkles I am sure).

Trouble is swimmers have to spend so much time in the pool to get better. And it's so good for our lanky, previously non-sporty teen who now has muscles and the resting heart rate of a top cyclist.

The quiet steady splashes of a squad moving up and down the pool is very restful. As I come back in daylight to pick him up, I hear the bark of a coach, followed by teenage laughter. The sleepy zombies at the beginning of the session are bouncing round looking pleased with themselves,chatting about the rest of their day . Christian's fears that he would be the slowest in this move up are now evaporated. New friends will be made, new confidences, new challenges, new life skills.

Maybe it won't be so bad after all

Matt and Mel's wedding photos are finally here. Seems such a long time ago now but they capture that beautiful day perfectly.

Easter

I think in a lot of ways I prefer Easter to Christmas. Yes it is a more reflective celebration, but ultimately joyous on Resurrection Sunday. It is the heart and hope of our faith. We worshipped on both Friday and Sunday with our church family which was beautiful. I love the slower pace of it for us as it doesn't have the frantic build-up of Christmas, just lots of getting together with people we love, laughing and eating (especially eating), and the long weekend that is so precious to those that usually have to head out the door on a Friday and Monday.

I think it has something to do with the time of year. This is ironic as we would appear to celebrate Easter at the wrong time of year, but I think it works well with the intimacy of the celebration. Days are slightly colder and daylight saving comes to an end so we instinctively draw closer as the nights are now darker. Unfortunately it was still too warm for us to light the first fire of the season, but that will keep.

This wonderful and leisurely weekend has been interspersed with Christian basically living up at school perfecting his robot programming skills. That boy is dedicated. He is so happy creating code and then watching it translate to action. Sam not so keen but is up there being a grunt worker - resetting the field over and over again. We are starting to count down the sleeps until we go.

USA here we come

Everything booked. Flights and hotels. Vaguely freaked. It all seems very unreal.I know everyone else we know seems to have travelled to the US but we haven't so it's all new. So far it's Disneyland for two days, a trip to San Diego, Dallas for the epic competition ( four days), back to LA for a day - Universal Studios and shopping, then home to NZ. SOOO excited. This is why we have saved and sat back when we could have spent. We are now totally debt free and the possibilities are now looming before us. USA here we come, hopefully returning with a world title under our belts.