Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto VEX

I wanted to use the title Gundam VEX Style somewhere after missing out on my last post.   But changed my mind. Again.

That's K's physics teacher beside him.  He looks young.  Like a student.  We wish K would sit up and stand up straight and not so much like a lurch.

We were at the Markham Pan Am Centre for a VEX Robotics competition.  First off this place is really nice!  It was the badminton and table tennis venue for the 2015 Pan Am Games.  It's also got Olympic sized swimming facilities on the opposite side of the building.

Today was for the older kids.  The day before was the U-10 kids.

It's also down the road from my buddy Gjouch, and he's a tech-propeller head like me, so I messaged him to let him know what's going on in his hood, and to bring some food. We thought this would be a drop-off, but our curiosity got to us and we stuck around and glad we did.

I said - if they point to a spilled Tim's double double and say something in broken Engrish. It's cuz the only other white person was the custodian.  Don't be offended.  Just walk on like you didn't hear it and look for me and my round head in the bleachers.   I hadn't seen his mug in real life in a long time so it was good to see him. 

This was K's crew.   They were still putting the finishing touches on their robot.  Actually they were still building it and writing code to run it.  Honestly, it looked like a dud, compared to the mobile self-cleaning dishwashers all the other asian kids had built. 

It may not have been able to do some of the advanced skills like the other robots in the competition, but this isn't a 1 dimensional competition.  There's many ways to get points.

And they actually did quite well. They exploited the points scoring to their advantage.  Accumulating as much as possible to defeat their robot opponents.

History has demonstrated that it isn't always the most technologically advanced product that wins out.  It's the one with the best strategy.   To these jokers credit, strategy was their friend.  I was impressed.  And they were surprised too.  Their Mr. Roboto went from Zero to Hero.

Good for these boys!

Check out this team's robot.  One of the skills is to pick up those yellow plastic discs and get them into that basket.  The screen shots are a sequence of that robot launching a disc from it's hopper and hitting the chains and landing in the basket.  We were wow'd, but the kids watching looked so unimpressed, like it was - Ah, ours cleans, dries and puts discs back in cupboard, and takes garbage out too.

I'm not sure how much time they had.  Maybe 10 mins per match, but some were rapid fire.  Launching 3 into the basket.  It was impressive.  And prior to the driver round, there's an autonomous round where it operates on it's own.  Those rounds weren't as impressive, but still that is a big challenge to meet, and they did move around.

There were all girls teams which was nice to see.

K's school has. Robotics club, and I requested to join.  K's friend D brought it to his attention - Hey your Dad just requested to join the club! But I got denied.   K hit the deny button.

I coulda helped them build something that didn't look like a hack.  It's about a $Grand for a VEX starter kit, but I saw they have some VR sandboxes where it's free to write code to control a robot.  I may just do that.

I mean, if I got one, T will just say the same thing she always says when I get something like this.  "What are you going to do with all this?"

She said the same thing when I bought my first set of tools, and bit by bit I learned the skills to renovate our home.  I actually said the same thing before I got my 3D printer.  But I found many uses for that thing too.  Moral of the story.  Need stuff to do stuff.  But also need some purpose and gumption.  Otherwise, the stuff will collect dust.  And you'll fail.  It's how you learn.

This might be more out of the box thinking on usefulness.  But plant the seed and make the technology available to everyone and I could see how the stuff I saw today with these kids could potential help our planet.

I saw the future today.  And it gave me hope.

Ready Player Gundam

I just finished assembling this Gundam.  It took me many weekends.  It took me a while to just start it.  It just goes together by friction fit.  No glue required.

This was my birthday gift from K.  He got it downtown.  But there's CanadaGundam that is based in Hamilton.  We got the other one from there.

I didn't realize how many pieces it was going to be.  It also articulates and can stand on it's own and has weapons like a sword and shield.

K has more than one in his display cabinet.  So mine is with his.

It was a challenge putting this together especially when the instructions are in Japanese but it's easy enough to figure out, but the pieces can be small.

So having good vision and finger dexterity makes it easier.  I think K assembled his in a day or weekend.

After a few hours of looking at the instructions and piecing it together with my nose literally to the model.  My eyes would go a bit buggy.

So I'd work on one section at a time.

Engine drive unit,

Head,

Torso,

Arms (left then right the next time)

Legs

Waist,

last were the weapons.

If you don't know what Gundam is, it's a Japanese anime from the late 70's/80's.  And still going today.  If you have never seen this cartoon.  The Gundam character was in the Spielberg movie Ready Player One.

I've seen this move a bunch of times, I never get tired of it.  It has all these characters that I'm familiar with and fond of, so I connected with it.

The scene with Gundam has him battling Mecha-Godzilla.

It's a kid friendly David vs Goliath / Hunger Games type movie with a happy ending.

His Name is Luka...

And he plays for the Dallas Mavericks!  A high profile Slovenian player (#77 Luka Doncic) was coming to town and we took T's dad to his first Raptor game.  In hindsight I should have made him a sign, he coulda been on the JumboTron.

We made a day of it and chauffeured him around for a change.  It was a nice day too.

We had the beautiful game of FIFA World Cup Futbol on everywhere he went.

An espresso, hot pastizzi.  World Cup on a big screen and a comfy sofa.   

What more could he want?

He'd never had Maltese pastizzi.  We get them basically down the road on Dundas St.  There's 2 types.  Meat and peas and cheese only.   I know he liked them, cuz he asked where we got them.  And he commented how you can get so many tasty things in Tdot!

A pre Raptor game snack and a beer.

And a chance to visit his adopted daughter and son.  He hadn't seen their new place since they moved.  So it was good for him to see.  Toronto isn't all dumpy.

It was nice for Steve to see Toronto from people that live here.  Mostly cuz we know how best to get around.

We know it's busy.   This isn't the burbs.  We use public transit.  We walk everywhere or ride our bikes.  It's easier.  

It's true.  We don't shop at Costco.  There are so many Ma & Pa shops near us.  It's not like this in the burbs.

It's different in the city.  Properties are smaller, but really how much space do you need?  And there's the traffic and construction.  Public transit can take you everywhere.  Have Presto Card will travel. 

You can focus on all the negatives.  Or you can find and enjoy all the great things the city has to offer.  It's up to you.

When you got an 85yo.  You want to make it easy.  Like he's a tourist doing a tour.  Basically that's what he is.  We Uber'd it to and from Scotiabank arena, in a nice big comfy SUV, right to the gate.  

We walked the arena so he could see how different it was from the Old Gardens.  It was like having a kid.  Got him water, popcorn.  I didn't tell him how much costs.  He would've fallen over.  But this is what it is.  Just enjoy yourself and root for the home team!

He said he couldn't recognize anything from the Toronto he used to know from decades past.  They only go where they know.  And nowhere else.  A lot has changed for sure.  Some call it progress.

In our section there were people from the 'Shwa that recognized him.  He was like a celebrity.  Who needs Luka.  We got Steve.