MSS Robotics team 11446A is super excited to be heading off to Louisville Kentucky USA to represent Manchester Street School, Feilding and NZ at the Vex Robotics Worlds Champs!

If you're heading all that way (14 hours Auckland to Houston) you need to make the most of it and do some sight seeing!!!

The Gerald D. Hines Waterwall Park

A view of the William's Tower from next to the water wall

Houston Museum of Natural Science

Created by artist Luke Jerram, this sculpture features 120 dpi detailed NASA imagery of the moon’s surface, using projection mapping.

In the Morian Hall of Paleontology. What do you think this skeleton came from?

Triceratops

Cullen Hall of Gems and Minerals

Hall of Ancient Egypt

Sarcophagus (Egyptian Coffin)

The Cockrell Butterfly Center

Don't feed the squirrels!

Catfish at the Downtown Aquarium and a Bengali white tiger (below). Some of us did try some catfish and it was quite tasty!

Downtown Houston

Minute Maid Park, home of the Houston Astros

Take me out to the ball game...

1 of the numerous pick ups around Houston that make our NZ utes seem kind of small

Sikorsky S-76A++ at the Lone Star Flight Museum

Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress

Kemah Boardwalk, located in the city of Kemah right next to Houston along west of Galveston Bay. Considered one of Americas premier boardwalks. Home to Bubba Gump Shrimp Restaurant.

A brutal wooden roller coaster. Covering a footprint of 1 acre, it is one of the most compact roller coasters in the world.

Space Center Houston. Here we have a replica of a space shuttle mounted on top of a the NASA 905 (a modified Boeing 747). The shuttle would be attached to rocket engines launch it into space, then carry out its mission then land back on earth. The 905 is to transport the shuttle from landing site back to launch site where it could be reused.

Model of the ISS

Off to the Johnson Space Center

Part of NASA's astronaut training facilities

Saturn V Rocket!!! Coming in at 110.6m tall and weighing 2,970,00kg. The 1st stage rocket engines produce a staggering 7,610,00 lb of thrust. Cost per launch in todays dollars is over 1 billion $!

Apollo Mission Control Center - think moon landing

Worlds largest pallasite meteorite

Moon rock - Anorthosite from Descartes Highlands region of the moon

T-38 Talon - a two-seat, twinjet supersonic jet trainer for the NASA astronauts

Houston Museum of fine arts

2nd century Ad, Roman

Greek, 7th century BC

Picasso

Toyota manufacturing plant in Georgetown, Kentucky. Unbelievably big and able to produce 2000 cars per day!

Some of the many old buildings in the picturesque town of Georgetown

Louisville Slugger Factory - this is where they make many of the bats the professional baseball players use. The bats in the Major Leagues must be made of wood, most commonly maple, ash or birch.

Out and about in Old Louisville

Louisville Mega Cavern - an originally an underground limestone quarry and now a storage facility and major tourist attraction. It covers 100 acres and has a year round temperature of 58 degrees Fahrenheit. During the Cuban missile crisis in the early 1960s, state officials made plans in case of nuclear attack to house 50,000 people in the cavern because it's a natural bomb shelter.

Thanks MSS Leadership Team for organising the gumboot day that raised the money for us to have a great time underground in the caverns

We have reassembled our robot and are ready to compete! The venue is the Kentucky Exposition Center and contains 120,000m2 of floor space. In other words a 20 minute walk from one end to the other.

Team pit area

Robot narrowly passes tech inspection. We had a back up plan just in case it was too wide as we knew it would be extremely close.

We had one practice match before the event officially kicked off. We will have 10 one minute matches over the next 2 days. In between matches we will find our partners, collaborate to develop a strategy and practice repetitively until we can pull it off 90% of the time. Finding your alliance partner can be a mission as they have there own match schedules and the place is huge.

Opening ceremony - go NZ!

One of the judges quizzing us about our robot

Robot skills. 1 robot, 2 of our drivers. Notice R2D2 made from vex iq parts

Kyron and Taylor with team 60000B from Farmington Missouri

Posing with the Knockbots from Indiana. Looks like we put in a good round.

Developing a strategy with 78682D. Practised many possible strategies to maximise points and then completely changed it right before our match :)

The change or plan doesn't phase us and we put in a solid round

Queing with 51F, XBots, from Summit New Jersey

After qualification match 8 with 36617B from the city of Tampico in Mexico

Our mates from FIS execute strategy to perfection

After our final round with Miccosukee Indian School of Miami Florida. We competed well averaging 24.75.points per round. Most importantly we were composed, had heaps of fun and showed positive team spirit. We gave it everything!

We were awarded the Judges Award.

The Judges Award is presented to a team that the Judges determine is deserving of special recognition. Judges consider a number of possible criteria for this award, such as team displays of special attributes, exemplary effort and perseverance at the event, or team accomplishments or endeavors throughout the season that may not fit under existing awards, but are nonetheless deserving of special recognition.

The grand-final. Our fellow NZ team the Nakibots made it through!!! To make it through you need to make it through to the division finals and then win that.