Student Blogs

My heart hammered like a drum. They were announcing the results of the competition. As the lips moved, I could sense it was us. The movement could tell it all. And then they called it. It was us! I was jumping up, and my months of hard work had been useful. Before this, it was a long journey to get here. Months of hard work and recognition had finally paid off.

The first day I joined, I felt like I was in a room built just right for me. I first tried putting together two gray beams with lots of holes connected by small pins. It was like taking the first step to my dream. I had many fears before this moment, though: “What if I can’t do this?” or “What if this is too hard for me?” I still kept moving, even with those questions in my mind. The place was built with lots of rooms inside. Some rooms had a field, and some had tables and chairs for students to work on.

There were many struggles along the way, though. One big problem was the coding we had worked on wasn't working, and we were in a match. We hadn’t realized this yet, but one of our teammates had been working on our code and made a critical mistake while coding and did not notice. Without hesitating, we went straight to our coach and asked how to fix it. Immediately, he came to our computer and showed us the problem. One coding block in the middle of the code was blocking the robot from moving. Like taking out a splinter from a finger, we took out that code block and fixed it.

Finally, we finished every match and gave it the best we got. We finished in the top 3, but we were waiting impatiently for the result. When the results were being given out, I bit my tongue, squinted my eyes, and squeezed my heart. I felt like my heart was going on a roller coaster. As the results were being given out, my heart was pounding like a drum. Then they said, "Our Team Had Won!" I found myself jumping up and down. My whole body was drenched in happiness.

Overall, robotics is mainly just to learn and have fun. Over the course of time, I have learned numerous important things that will help me later in life. Robotics can help lead to other jobs, like mechanics. I highly recommend doing robotics, as it helps you in many ways, not just learning, but also making friends. In the end, I learned that it doesn't matter if you lose or not; it matters if you try your best.