"A mind once stretched by a new idea can never regain its original dimensions." ~Oliver Wendall Holmes

Current Weather Info

Current Sun and Moon Info

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Things to do in Anchorage

While we (robotic team) were in Anchorage last weekend, we had the chance to do lots of fun things in addition to the competition. I already wrote about how we went ice skating, which was alot of fun. We also spent some time walking around the mall and shopping. Whoever came up with the idea of having an ice skating rink in the mall was on to something. It is really convenient to have it there. There was also a bowling alley and a movie theater at the mall, but we didnt have time for all of that. After the competition on Saturday night, everyone voted for dinner at Chuck-E-Cheese. They had a blast playing the games and didnt eat near as much pizza as I thought they would because they were so busy running around in the glow of flashing lights and the clank of sound effects. I enjoyed it very much as well!
Here are the two Bethel teams having fun at Chuck-E-Cheeses. The other team is a Kilbuck elementary school team made up of 5th and 6th graders. They did very well at the competition, coming in 3rd in the robot performance rounds and taking home the 1st place teamwork trophy.
Later that night, we went back to the hotel and the kids went swimming. Even with all that action and excitement, they still managed to stay up until well after midnight. On Sunday morning, we got up, had breakfast, and went to the indoor waterpark, H2Oasis. Catchy name, eh? They had a blast at the water park.
It is pretty small, but still nice to have when it's -10 outside (although it was 30 above while we were there) and not much else to do. I can tell you that all of the people were noticably lacking of any sort of tan. While the kids swam, us adults took turns going shopping for supplies to bring back to Bethel. I am pretty sure that that is the last time that I will make it out of Bethel for awhile, so I brought back as much stuff as I could. And considering there were 16 of us travelling and we are all entitled to 3 pieces of luggage each, I was able to bring back quite alot of stuff.
All in all, it was a good trip. I would have liked to see my team step it up a notch. They did very well and improved their scores over the scores from the district competition, but I do believe if they would have just put a little more effort into it, they could have walked away with a trophy in their hands. We did get some very positive feedback from the judges since I last wrote about the competition. They said that our team was in the top ranks on all of the various judgings throughout the day and that they are pleased to see that the LKSD teams are finding themselves in the top slots. They said that over the last 5 years that we have been doing robotics, that we have improved tremendously. It's good to hear that all of the hard work has paid off.

No comments: