The competition was nearing. We all knew our robot was not ready, but we bused the team down anyway. Dauphin Island was expecting the team, so as soon as we pulled up we were rushed into a safety check area. As the judges rigorously checked our robot for any safety problem, we watched the judges’ papers intently. Our robot thankfully passed. The judges gave us a confidence by talking about how much they liked our design. They loved our solid acrylic frame and our 3D printed parts. The judges even said, “We don 't usually see ROVs built this well.” As soon as the safety exam ended, we rushed into our hotel style dorm rooms. We began remaking the robot parts that had broken the day before. The first problem came from our electronics. The computer wasn 't responding to our commands. Our lead programmer said, “Y’all I don 't think it will be able to run.” But after a few hours of programming, the robot was finally running and we could manipulate all of the game pieces. We decided the robot was ready to go and put the robot up for the night. …show more content…
After the night of programming, the competition day had come. All of the teams were bused out to a facility in Mobile, Alabama. We got our robot prepared and waited for our competition. We finally got to put our robot in the water. We launched it and began competing. First we started identifying miniature sunken satellites. Then we collected coral samples, identified coral colonies, and attempted to make an artificial reef. Our team left the competition area feeling good about our performance. We waited until they announced the score. We found out that we had the highest score and headed