1. One of the girls got sick and wasn't able to make it. The girls had written a skit to perform in front of the judges, and so one of them had to play two roles to take the place of the sick girl.
2. About half an hour before the second round of the competition, the robot started freaking out and didn't do what it was supposed to. One girl, who had done most of the programming, tried to fix it but gave up and programmed the whole thing from scratch. In 30 minutes. I was so proud!
3. The robot's battery was dying. This actually may have caused #2 above. Not sure. But we couldn't change the battery because it would have required disassembling the robot, unscrewing the back, changing the batteries, screwing the back back on, and putting the robot back together. I don't know which engineer decided that design was a good idea. I'll have to remember to work around that as I coach next year's team with their robot design.
In terms of fashion, it was really hard for me to be fashionable while wearing a bright pink t-shirt over my nude blouse and brown linen pants, but I figured no one cared. I do like the fact that the t-shirts stuck out though -- the other teams had blues and greens. The neon pink stuck out like a sore thumb... especially because sore thumbs are generally pink. Anyway, I think jeans and a long-sleeved tee under the t-shirt would have been a better outfit. Another thing to note for next year.
(Note: The girls' faces were grayed out to protect their anonymity)
