With No Gas

Hey, it's Rachel!
I just wanted to update you on my entire Europe experience.

The weirdest thing about Austria is that regular water is hard to find. Most water is strongly carbonated with gas. Still water is rare, but I don't like carbonated. When at a restaurant, one must ask, "May I please have water with no gas?"


So far, I have only spoken a bit of German. I say "bitte" for please, and "danke" for thank you.

Rachel

Day 2 of RoboCup

Another day spent at the Stadthalle. The RoboDragons had their first two matches, and, unfortunately, an uncooperative robot prevailed and the scores were not high. They will compete twice tomorrow, and, hopefully, after many hours of robot tweaking, the scores will be higher.
This is the "field", where the robots compete in the rescue mission event. The robot has to follow the dark line, stopping to "pick up" victims on the line, avoiding the obstacles in the way, and going up the ramp to the top level.

In this photo, Rachel and teammate Uday look concerned as the robot has difficulty turning on the right angle at the bottom of the ramp.

We met this little fellow in the exhibition hall. He was dancing, with movements that closely approximated human movement. We saw his friends playing soccer (notice the computer/robotics college students with the computers in the background).
I swear that the one in the middle was looking coyly toward the camera instead of looking toward the soccer ball.

At the Stadthalle

We spent 10 hours at the Stadthalle today, at RoboCup 2009. There are 995 students registered, on 187 teams, from 25 countries. The students range from 10 years old to graduate students. The RoboDragons registered today, and then were interviewed by judges to make sure that they had done the work for their robot themselves. The judge told them that they had a high score for the interview.

Rachel and teammate Uday conferring with Elizabeth, the team coach and mentor. Mentors were not allowed on the floor with the teams, hence the rope at the top of the photo, keeping Elizabeth outside.

The competition will be done in superteams, with each individual team paired with two others. The teams will compete together, and can gain points from each other's successes, but each team is scored alone. The RoboDragons will be working with an Italian and a Slovakian team tomorrow. The kids are learning a great deal about international cooperation, because the Italian kids don't speak any English, and only one member of the Slovakian team speaks a bit of English.

The sights from around the hall are amazing. From where I sat I could see the RoboDragons working on programming their robot, all of them in tee-shirts, while another rescue team walked by wearing three piece dark suits. I watched a dance team from Finland, all with umbrellas, dancing to "Singing in the Rain", in rhythm with an umbrella-toting robot. One dance team made a robot that looked like a life-size swan, complete with feathers and wings that flapped in time to music.

I watched high school and college teams playing soccer. These robots can even kick the ball, which makes it difficult for the goalie robot to make a save.

Back to the hotel for dinner and more work on the robot. We are all quite jet-lagged, so it's early to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night last night for several hours, when it was about 6:30 p.m. New Jersey time, I think because my body thought that it was time for dinner! Here's how we all feel about jet lag: (Team member Michael's little brother has become the team mascot.)

First Day in Graz

Greetings from Graz, or should we say Guten Abend!
Our hotel overlooks the River Mur, which runs through the city. Here is one view from our balcony.

After arriving and a nap, we shared chococappucino, tea and Apfelstrudel at a local kaffe shop. Here's Rachel drinking current tea. Rachel was embarrassed when I ordered in German, but I think that I got all the words right, in my horrific accent. We have encountered many English speakers, and I only had to pantomime once, to someone on the housekeeping staff. (Anyone know how to say "my daughter is sleeping" in German?)



The kaffe shop was in the Haufplatz, or square. On one side was the Town Hall, or Rathaus. Beautiful, isn't it? It was built in 1878 in honor of the Syrian Prince.

All day today was spent at the Stadthalle, where the robotics tournament is being held. We'll include photos in our next post. Tschuss!

Coverage in Local Newspaper

Rachel was interviewed by a reporter from the Bernardsville News. An article should appear
this week or next week. Please look for it. For those who live out of town, I will post a link to the article online when it appears.
I was proud when Rachel told the reporter that she was looking forward to meeting more girls who were interested in robotics, as she is the only girl on her team. I guess that my feminist leanings have rubbed off on her a bit!
Debbie

Fundraising continues

We are continuing our fundraising efforts for the trip, which begins on June 29th. We held a
cupcake sale after church today, and the money raised will be very helpful to cover our expenses.
To everyone who contributed, thank you! Your generosity was amazing. We hope that you
enjoyed the cupcakes. Members of the Church of the Redeemer in Morristown are very
generous folks.

We are still looking for some larger corporate donations, so if you have any corporate contacts who might be interested, please let us know.

Rachel