Friday, March 26. 2010
Thanks to Crystal, we have an update “Day Two – Let’s get it on!” This covers the first day of the regional – Thursday, Practice day.
It’s day two of being in Boston with the drive, pit and back up team. Most of our students (even the ones back home) woke up at regular school time hours to get ready for our arrival at the Boston Agganis arena!
We set off from the hotel at 7:30am after waiting for everyone to get their meals and head off. Everyone piled in cars, and we drove over to the parking garage which was $10/person! Kind of unfortunate, really, but oh well!
The arena was already really crowded with pit setup, stands flare, and even laptops! Everyone had their own special items, like the Duct Tape Bandits – one of our favorite teams.
Did you know that you cannot bring food or drink into the venue? You can’t even walk in without having your bags checked! But it’s got to be best for everyone!
What we had for lunch? At the arena concessions you could find anything from pizza, to pretzels, to even crab cake sliders! Talk about variety! Many of us decided to eat out though at the Qdoba’s down the street, or Chicken restaurant that appears to be favored by quite a few of our team members!
The practice day consisted of our students pit scouting, exploring or being in the pits mounting on all the new robot designs that were completed as of 4pm! We have a new hanger that effectively works and flips our robot up successfully! However, we are currently working to “up” our status on there because we don’t quite clear the tower base (or whatever name best fits here).
When it came time for everyone to stop practice rounds our members took their time packing everything up for the pit. A majority of the pit crew went right back into their working zone, while some returned home to the hotel to rest, or attended the team social that served free pizza and ice cream! Held in a gymnasium, half of it was used for movie viewing of The Terminator, and the other side had food and games! The hosts were collecting jigsaw puzzles that would be donated for an Alzheimer’s cause.
In a nutshell, there were many series of unfortunate events today, but everyone is here now, and our Thunder is still rolling.😃
We look forward to a great day tomorrow and lots of cheering!
Signing off again for take two is your head Communications Director,
Crystal