After few rounds of need for speed and the effects of the Old Town White Coffee fades out, the writer planned to sleep but then,something had seduced him to go against the law of 'sleep earlier wake earlier'. Someone had reminded him something which he's not satisfied of. So in the middle of late night, while no other victims for him to complain, he decided to pour it into here. Sorry for the blog as he had contaminated this blog with this emotional post XD
For the past few weeks,the writer was busying with his competition. What will be the competition that will make him so excited of? Yea you're correct, the answer is a competition that regards with practicals and technology's things which not related to academy study, the stupid freaking tired-ing robot geek competition called Robocon. What is Robocon actually? It's actually a competition about building a robot to complete required tasks like moving around, avoiding obstacles and hit required targets. When heard about robot,for sure you will think like "Oh, robot?is it like ASIMO - the world's most advance humanoid robot?with nice appearance?", then you're absolutely wrong! The robots built were all not pretty dressed, but did met the requirements of the competition - completing the tasks given.
So, how was the manufacturing process of the robot? Basically, the division work of manufacturing the robot is in three sections, that are mechanical parts, electronic parts and also programming. Every single part of the robot were fabricated by them,a team of experts consists of mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering and also electrical and electronic engineering's students. First, we figured out the design and the functions of the robot. Then, selecting materials and mechanical parts such as motors,power windows and etc appropriately in order to fulfill the design. After completed the mechanical parts, here comes the electronic parts like main board or so called motherboard,light sensors,those stupid wires (which make the writer crazy for sometime) all these are the parts which the writer loves the most. Last but not least, the controlling task, named programming, which is fatal as the program programmed by programmers instruct the actions, movement of the robot. Lets make it clearer by giving some examples. The mechanical parts of the robot are just like our body, the robot have their arms, legs or perhaps tires will be more accurate. In order to live they need to have a heart and brain. Battery will be giving energy to move the mechanical part mean while motherboard is the brain of the robot.Programs are idea and instructions given to the robot, the instruction was stored in a small brain called PIC (Programmable Integrated Circuit) and then connected to the motherboard,sending those instructions by connected wires to the mechanical parts. Ain't easy huh?
Ei? Then what's the job of the writer? Because of the devil (laziness) inside writer's heart, he went for the first time for fabricating the robot, then disappeared until the last call of the meeting. He went when the fabrication of robot of writer team's going to finish to give the last aid. And surprisingly, the writer volunteered to be one of the programmer of the team. (actually nothing to surprise as the writer do loves this kind of activities and project as it's very interesting and alot of skills can be learned in this activity) So comes the nightmare of the writer. During the process of programming, he met alot of difficulties and obstacles. The people who always absent during fabricating the robot was now keep seeing him inside the lab facing his beloved lappy brain storming. After keep trying for don't know how many times until the robot leave some 'love bite' on his hand, the writer finally completed his program together with another two programmer. The feeling of excited and happiness can't been described in words when they eying the robot completing 3 tasks given by the committee of the competition. 3am in the morning, that's the time they leave the lab with happiness and full hope to grab away the champion of the competition which will be held at noon of that day.
Too sad as the writer got another function on that day so he can't attend the competition and witness the glory of the his group. After attended a whole-day tired activity organized by Miss Teh, lecturer of KMPP for her students,or writer's juniors, which was quite fun and memorable, the writer received bad new from his teammate (it's indeed a good new actually XD) . Because of some technical problem, they just managed to get first runner up for the competition or perhaps luck doesn't side them. (but actually writer don't like to relate things to luck as we can't manipulate it,in this case,no doubt luck do plays a important role) They can get the champion but because of the loosen of the PIC made them failed in the third task. What a sad thing for them =(
The most unsatisfied thing was, the writer had been filtered for the interview for official Robocon Team to represent their university for next year's national competition. Every single person who joined the activity was selected despite those who never attend during fabricating the robot. Yes, it maybe because of the absentees during the first few meetings of the group but what had he done before the competition weighted alot too! Hearing his roommates,teammates talking about the official competition for next year, his heart do feels hurt. He hates that kind of feelings especially the hard work that he contributed was not recognized by the others. But what can he do? Be a thick facer
