Robotics

Now, I ask you not to call me a nerd, but about a month ago I competed, along with the rest of my team, in the New Jersey Regional FRC Event. For those of you who don’t know, which is probably most of you, FRC stands for FIRST Robotics Competition and you can find out more at usfirst.org. Anyway, I am a part of team 2458, Team Chaos, based out of Gill St. Bernard’s School in Gladstone. I have to say, I was pretty excited going into this. It was my second year doing robotics and I was pretty sure that I’d be the driver this year. So, we went down on a Thursday, practiced on Friday, and competed on Saturday and Sunday. Here’s an on board video from Friday:

Pretty cool, huh? Well, because of that amazing performance, I was the official driver of the robot this year! I know! Pretty exciting! So, we went back to the hotel, had some pizza, slept, and went back the next day.

Our Robot

Us scoring with the robot.

More Driving

So, the first day of competition went okay, wasn’t the best, but it was good. The highlight of our day was definitely when we scored a shutout 7-0. Pretty exciting. Here’s the on board video from Saturday:

So, Sunday was better. Better to the extent that we were chosen by the Somerville team and Team RICE to go on to the semi-finals. I came close to crapping in my pants. Only 24 out of the 60 teams at the event move on to semi-finals! So, once the excitement died down, we got right to business. The sad thing was that, due to technical difficulties, we didn’t get past the semi-finals.

But, you know what? I am glad that I participated in my second year of robotics, and I was honored to be chosen as the driver. I’d also like to thank my team. You guys are amazing. The entire experience was amazing. I made many new friends, and I am wiser from the entire event. Well, that’s all. Robotics was amazing. And that’s all she wrote. IamMisplaced

Eeep… and Socially Awkward Vol. 1

I know, I know, I haven’t posted anything in a moose’s age, but hear me out; I have been extremely busy with rapping up school and being accepted into a boarding school, going to a robotics competition, and spring break (each of these will have their own posts) that I haven’t dedicated any time to the blog or my twitter, but I’m slowly making my way back into groove. I am kind of going to cheat right now by putting the first part of a screenplay I wrote for a friend of mine called “Socially Awkward.” I think that I did a pretty good job with it and I think that you guys will like it too, but who knows, it could be complete crap. So, without any further ado, here is “Socially Awkward,” Vol. 1! Enjoy! IamMisplaced

Socially Awkward

A bus station that straddles the border of two unknown states. It is very dirty and is located in a rural “dirt poor” town. You see a teenager sitting in the middle of a bench which happens to straddle the border as well. Zooming in finds that he has a bloody nose and a black eye as well. A ticking clock showing 5:45 is see above his shoulder. Flip to black screen with title. Flip to black screen which says “12 hours earlier.” Another clock is seen showing the time 5:45, except it is lighter outside. It is the inside of a 7-11 and the teenager seen in the prior scene opens up the cooler. He pulls out a Mountain Dew and walks to the counter. The cashier scans the soda and asks if that’s it. He responds yes. He pulls out his wallet and hands the cashier a 5 dollar bill. Go to a shot of the hands exchanging the bill, during the exchange, the door to the convenience store opens. Pan out to see a girl, same age as the boy. He stands there, his mouth gaping and staring. He brings himself back into reality when the cashier gives him his change. During the exchange, the girl goes to the cooler to get a soda, grape, and walks to where the boy is standing. He says in a shy manner, “Hey Chloe.” She responds, “Hey Stuart, how are things?” A couple of seconds pass before the cashier clears his throat, sensing that Stuart is in disbelief that Chloe would even acknowledge him, let alone know his name. “Everything is great, nothing new or exciting.” “Well that’s good. I guess I’ll see you around,” she replies. “Yeah, see ya later,” he says awkwardly. A moment passes as she leaves the store. “What the fuck was that?” the cashier exclaims, startling Stuart, “Are you Tommy? Deaf, dumb, and blind?” “Shut the fuck up,” Stuart says, angrily, as he grabs his soda and walks out the door. The camera then switches to a shot of Stuart walking into his bedroom. He sets down his soda and sits in a chair by the desk. He turns to the computer and opens up Firefox. He then pulls up Facebook and types Chloe’s name in the search box. He is led to her profile page where her last few statuses were depressing quotes from books, movies, etc. As he’s looking at her page, a chat window pops up from Chloe. It reads: “Hey Stu, how was your Dew?” Stuart reads it intently, rereading the name several times. He responds, “Delicious. Nothing better than bright green soda hiding in a green bottle.”It was a sad attempt at humor, but he tried it anyway. A couple of seconds pass before she responds: “lol, that’s pretty funny…” “Well, I try.” Stuart chuckles at himself. A response quickly comes, “Hang on brb.” Stuart uses this time to look at his emails. He looks at the replies from the colleges: accepted to Princeton and Middlebury and rejected at the Colorado School of Mining. The moment of irony is short lived as the “ding” of the Facebook chat brings Chloe back to his mind. “Listen, I need to get out if this house and talk to someone other than my mom, wanna meet at Rutherfords in 15 minutes?” This invitation shocked Stuart. He couldn’t respond any quicker than he did with the yes.

A black screen pops up with the time “7:45 PM”

To be continued…

P.S. Hopefully multiple posts this week, as well as pictures!

Socially Awkward by Charlie Beck is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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