My Experience on Robotic Olimpiade
So, last wednesday i had a robotic olimpiade with my partner and some of my friends from school.
It was held on Wednesday, 19th November. Actually, we went to the olimpiade because we are from Robotic 3(an extracurricular in my school). Me and some friends are amateur in Robotic, because we are freshman and the extracurricular started only a few weeks ago.
So, at the first meeting between people in the robotic(happened few weeks before the olimpiade), we were just getting to know each other, but the upperclassmen that joined the group directly told us about the olimpiade because the time was near. But, the upperclassmen don't explain or ask to us for a while and i don't understand why. About a week before the competition happened, they asked us again to clarify which will come and which don't. So, i agreed. Some of my friends did agree, like Zarindra, Rangga, etc. Then, people that agreed to do it had a training two days before the competition started. So, there are 4 teams that agreed, and my partner was Tasya from upper grade (lol). There are upperclassmen as well, not just me and my friends that joined the competition. Then i realized there are no professional trainer that trained us, so i asked one of the upperclassman, Kang Haritz, why there is no professional trainer. He told me once the robotic team hired a trainer, but then he can't come any longer. Then the team hired again, and it happened again.
Kang Haritz is one of the people that is good at robot because he often went to Olimpiade like this and on junior high school he was trained.
So, in the training, we were faced by a track made of black selotipe on a white board
It's pretty much like that. It's the track. Every team was given the same robot named Pololu that made by a factory, because in the competition self-made robot is pretty bad and big and slow.
As i said before, there is no trainer, so the upperclassmen that already know how the robot works, explain us about it. Then, i and my partner and others was training. But, the school doesn't stop, so we asked dispensation letters from school so we could train while others are studying. So, the training began. We put the code to the program, then we plug the robot to the laptops, then we program the robot. That's how simple it is. So, i trained and it was a little bit hard to make what we wanted happen because we must control the robot undirectly. On tuesday, one day before the competition happened, i trained again from morning to afternoon.
That's what pololu looks like
So, on wednesday, we were not really prepared for the olimpiade, because the time was short. The competition started at 1 pm, so in the morning i went to school and trained first. I felt nervous because i knew i wasn't good enough to be the winner. But, we must go. So, at half past ten, we went to ITENAS( Institut Teknologi Nasional or National Institute of Technology) that's where the olimpiade took place. We did a quick regristration. My friend Dias forgot to bring his money to pay the fee, so Kang Harits paid it for him so Dias could pay him back on the future. We prayed before the olimpiade and ate as well because we got times.
Then at 1 pm, the competition zone was made and every competitor was asked to come to the area. I saw lot of committees there. There are some seat there. The committee asked us to sit down and close the laptop. I saw the other competitors. They prepared a self-made robot, not a pololu, so I and other three teams from my school are the only teams that used pololu. Then before the competition started, the committee told us the rules of the competition. Then they put the track of the robot(the black track) onto the ground. The competition was divided to two sessions. But both rules are the same and how the game works is the same. It's just the time that is different After that, the competition started. My team prepared the laptops and the Pololu. Tasya wrote the code very fast. I showed her the track and helped other things. In every session, we are able to try the track, so we tried many times. We got some problems and it happened often, just like when we were training in school. In the end of session one, our robot didn't finish the finish line. The only robot that went to the finish line was the one that belongs to Kang Haritz. Actually, my friend Zarindra's robot went to the finish line. But, then the robot went again without stopping on the correct line. So apparently my team got 4 points and 4 penalty without finishing the finish line.
There are break between session. We used it to pray and eat for a while. Then the second session started. It was not really different from session one. I fixed some problems we had. But unfortunately, we got the same score as before. My upperclassmen behind me made a note of scores every team had.
After the competition almost finish, Kang Harits told us i had a chance to be the third winner, and he as the first winner. But the announcement started at 8 pm and my mom was already on the parking zone, so i told them i can't come to the announcement. Then i said goodbye and i went to my mom's car. She was there. Then we both went back home. I was believing that i will get the 3rd rank.
The next day, i asked to Kang Harits. Then i really got the third place, i got Rp.500.000,00 for my team and a trophy. I was so grateful. I was happy then i told my mom about it.
Yeaahh!!!!
