We have learnt so much from SoutheastCon 2014 and the efforts of the organizers should be commended.They were very supportive in all stages of the competition- lenient when they could be yet stringent when it was needed. Overall, Regina and her team at UK had as usual done an incredible job. There was such great spirit from all the teams involved in the competition as we helped each other out in our weak areas and provided constructive criticism and recommendations despite being rivals. We were all judged on the same playing field and in the end the best and most consistent robot won. Through interacting with other universities at the competition, we had all undoubtedly put sleepless nights, blood, sweat and tears into the building of our robots. Work had been put in as early as the moment the competition rules were announced in 2013. Many of us paid our own way, drove for one to twelve hours, or took seven-hour flights for a chance to be recognized as the best in the Robotics Competition. Many of us had fully functioning robots going into the competition but then it just so happened that everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Poor lighting conditions, changes in qualifying procedure, power constraints, sensors going out, image processing suddenly not working, you name it. THE REAL WORLD HAPPENED and as engineers we should always be prepared for that. For us, hardlined decisions had to be made regarding our approach and we can imagine we werent alone. We all had our fair share of disappointment but we must be careful not to have this overshadow the wonderful experience that SoutheastCon 2014 truly was. As the memories are still fresh in our mind, we wish us all to reflect on the wonderful opportunity the SECon was through the work of sponsors and organizers. We were never truly hungry (unless we so chose), the networking events forced :D us to meet companies and other universities and colleges (though many of us didnt want to spend a second away from our robot). There was so much enthusiasm within the hardware room as we talked, laughed, shared ideas and gave encouragement to like minded-students. Lest we forget there is only one winner but despite that, failure can be tolerated if we choose to learn from experiences and never stop trying. We have decided to use this experience as a stepping stone on which to further our greatness and we urge the rest of us to do the same. On behalf of UWI IEEE SB
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 07:02:32 +0000
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