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“I’m on a bus!” My most memorable night out

I often find myself wondering if this night really happened!

In mid April last year, the robotics team that I help mentor went on a road trip.  Destination: Atlanta Georgia (via Kitchener Ontario) to compete in the world championships of the FIRST robotics competition “Lunacy” (youtube).

map

This journey would bring us through Ontario, across an international border into the USA, through Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and finally arriving in Georgia….that’s 22 hours on a bus full of teenagers!

The trip started out in the afternoon with the usual bus ride activities….reading, listening to music, watching movies, taking pictures….

but this is not the average group of teenagers….there was also a chess tournament, math homework, recitations and interpretations of Hamlet, knitting of robotics themed hats, debating of robotics competition strategy, and a bit of general silliness and singing “I’m on a Bus!” (Think “I’m on a Boat” but with bus appropriate lyrics)

bus

There were several attempts at sleeping, but with a bus driver break every 2-3 hours, caffeine consumption and increasing adrenaline…we didn’t sleep much.  Instead, we had a BUS RAVE!

Loud techno music, 40 glowsticks, a bus full of teenagers at 1:00 AM on a bus in Ohio.  This was definitely my most memorable “Night Out” of the year!  I’ve never seen a robotics team dance like that before!

We did eventually get to Atlanta…

and competed in the Georgia Dome, winning a trophy for being the best rookie team in our division….the perfect ending for our first season.

Now we wait for kick-off of the 2010 challenge on January 9th, and the robotics season begins again!

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This entry was posted on Saturday, December 5th, 2009 at 8:32 am and is filed under Best of 2009 Blog Challenge, knitting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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