What an event! After a short plane ride, we landed in St. Louis, Missouri, and went straight from the airport to our hotel. The coaches gave all of us our room keys so we could drop off our luggage and freshen up a bit before going to see the Gateway Arch, the symbol of St. Louis. Our hotel was conveniently located right near the Arch. We went to the top of the Arch and marveled at the height, and later we had a team picture. Another FRC team, Team 365, MOE, were at the Arch as well, and students from both teams played frisbee together. We all enjoyed ourselves! Once evening had set in, we went out to a tasty dinner at an Italian restaurant, then went back to the hotel.
The next morning, qualifying rounds were held to kick off the competition. All of us Daisies were on our A-game! After the opening ceremony, which featured speeches from FIRST® founder Dean Kamen and musician Will.i.am, we found ourselves a spot in the stands and watched more qualifying matches. Our scouting team got set up, and our pit crew was bouncing off the walls with excitement. Everyone was having a blast meeting with new teams, as well as seeing some familiar old faces. When the first day finally ended we went to Robo-prom, a dance event for FRC team members. It was a lot of fun for us, giving us a little break before things really began to get intense.
On Saturday, we had to buckle down and do our best to try and make it to the final round of the competition. At the end of the qualifying rounds we ended up eighth place in our division, which meant that we still had a chance at Einstein. We had to pick two other teams that would work well with us, as well as hold their own on the field. We picked Team 2826, Wave Robotics, and Team 68, Truck Town Thunder. We went bravely into battle against the first ranked team of our division.
We ended up losing that round and being eliminated from the competition. However, we did not let that stop us from enjoying the rest of the trip. We stayed at the stadium to watch the final rounds, which are played on the Einstein field, and rooted for both alliances. FIRST® hosted an after-party at the St. Louis Science Center, which us Daisies happily attended. There were a lot of people to meet, a lot of food to eat, and a lot of fun to be had! After an hour or so had passed, we used one of the buses parked outside the Science center to get back to our hotel.
On Sunday we all woke up at 4 o’clock in the morning and got on the train to the airport. After waiting for awhile, we hopped on the plane and flew back home, where we then had to wait another half an hour for a school bus to pick us up. Once we were back at school, the excitement had ended, but the memories of St. Louis will live on forever.
