Nerds will be Nerds

For the next few days my family is in Knoxville for the FIRST Robotics Competition.

The kids are team members of the Redstone Robotics club.  

Redstone Robotics is comprised of students from several Huntsville City High Schools. 

Our team is very young with most of the kids being freshmen or new to robotics - or both.  

The last few weeks have been a bit of a scramble so it will interesting 

to see how the robot will compete.  

The team seems to be coming together nicely now.  

I hope this competition will be an exciting, motivational, bonding experience for the kids.  

Redstone Robotics' robot is called Overjive.

There are teams from all over the Southeastern United States here.

 Our team's booth was next to a castle.  Look at their framed medals.  

This ain't their first robot rodeo.

The "pit" is the area of the exhibit hall where each team has their booth set up.  

Although there are some very simple booths there are many teams 

who have invested much money and time into their areas.  

Tools, equipment, rolling tool chests, spare pieces-parts displayed in creative booths - 

these teams are ready for whatever robotic emergency arises.  

There seems to be a few common threads amongst all of the teams.

First, they are all highly intelligent teens.

Second, they are excited to be here.  The team spirit is running pretty high around here.

Finally, these kids are nerds.  Plain and simple.  

But having married a nerd and been around them most of my life, I gotta tell you that nerds rule.

The stage is certainly set for an exciting competition - I mean - look at this! 

Cool huh?  

Some final adjustments being made by the officials.

Bruce and I are looking forward to sitting in the stands cheering on our kids 

and the Redstone Robotics team.