Final post = memories of a great trip!

Final post of the trip includes some video snapshots and extra photos!

If students have any photos to share or want a copy of any photos from the blog etc. bring in a memory stick and Mr Benzid or Miss Burnham will organise this for you.

Shopping and Santa Monica

Yes, we may be back in the UK and back at school, although slightly jet lagged, but there are still plenty of memories and photos to look through after a fantastic trip!!

On our last day the students had the morning to hit the shops in the mall and spend, spend, spend!! We definitely bought back a stylish bunch of students in their outfits, plus plenty of presents for family, and enough American food to keep them going until Christmas!

After we had hit the shops we headed down to Santa Monica beach. It was a great afternoon having fun and getting rather wet and sandy on the beach and seeing how much Mr Benzid doesn't like heights whilst going round and round on the big Ferris wheel! 

After we had emptied all the sand out of our shoes, repacked the cars it was time to head to the airport and make the long journey back to the UK :(

We would like to thank everyone for their support during the competition and following our journey on the blog and twitter, it has been great to hear that so many people kept track of our trip and watched the competition live all around the world! 

We still have lots of photos to share so there will be a couple of more blog posts before we sign off for another year!!

Disneyland!

After all the excitement and success on competition day Sunday was a great day to unwind, relax and have fun at Disneyland!

It was a lovely sunny day as Mr Benzid and the girls in his car and Miss Burnham and the boys in her car headed out onto the freeway. A short while later we arrived at the Daisy parking lot before heading over to the Disneyland theme park. 

Thrills and screams were had by all on Space mountain and Thunder mountain, exciting driving races took place at Autopia and Mr Benzid got to meet Jasmine!

Competition day results

The competition may now be over but we all have fantastic memories of the day. The day started with 98 initial matches with 49 teams taking part in the Clash of the Canyon competition this year. During the morning stage both teams were doing really well in the rankings and by the end of the qualifiers we were 4th and 28th. We knew the team in 4th position would be going through to the quarter finals as they were one of the top 8 teams and luck had it that our team in 28th position was picked to take part in the quarter finals when they were picked as an alliance team. The quarter and semi finals were very exciting to watch with our two teams going up against each other. By the end of the semi finals one of our teams were into the final eventually coming 2nd in the overall competition an amazing result and the other team went on to win the Sportsmanship award. Both teams should be really proud of their efforts and achievements during the competition and coming 2nd overall in the competition is the best result from a UK team at the competition.

Competition day!!!

We arrived early at 7.30am to a hall buzzing full of robotics team - 47 teams in total! Set up has commenced and the teams are set to go!!
Our first match will be around 9.10am (California time) we are teams 3117B and 3117.

Live stream of competition day

Want to see our teams in action at the Clash of the Canyons competition then go to the livestream by clicking here!

Competition day tomorrow!!

Great news that both teams robots passed registration ready for the Clash of the Canyons competition tomorrow. This evening we were able to do a little more testing on a competition field and students were prepped by Mr Benzid and Miss Burnham on interview techniques, a part of the competition by the judges.

We hope lots of students, parents and staff will stop by and check out the live stream of the competition tomorrow. The link can be found here. We will also try and keep the blog updated throughout the day with the latest match scores.

More from ViewPoint High School!

Today has been a busy and fun filled day at ViewPoint High School. One of the amazing things about the school is it has its own Physics and Robotics laboratory as Robotics is part of the school curriculum.

It even has its own static robotics competition field which students can use when building and testing their robots before competitions so it was a great chance for us to test out the robots before the big day tomorrow.

Day 2 - Viewpoint High School

Today the students had the chance of being an American student. We were greeted at Viewpoint High School by their robotics team in the Physics and Robotics Laboratory and then students were buddied up ready for their day of lessons. Students had the chance of taking part in Programming lessons, Art, Orchestra, English and Film Studies to name a few. It was a great opportunity to experience real life as as an American student. All the students were amazed by the school, curriculum and facilities and it was a great time had by all!

Hollywood here we come!

After the morning of testing the robots and making sure both the teams were happy we then headed into Hollywood! 

We all had a great time on the tour bus around the streets of LA seeing the Hollywood walk of fame, celebrity house spotting followed by a great meal at Hardrock cafe. 

Then it was time to hit Mr Benzid's favourite spot - the $5 dollar store!

Day 1

It was an early morning start so we could unpack the robots and get building and testing but before we did it was the students first experience of breakfast in California. 

Students piled their plates up high with waffles, French toast and pancakes plus still had room for fruit, eggs, sausages .... the list is endless! It was good to see they all had healthy appetites!

After breakfast it was time to do last minute checks on the robots before a morning of testing and preparation for the competition - everything looks good so fingers crossed!

So robots are ready and this afternoon we head into Hollywood!

Heading out to LA!

A grey, misty and raining Wednesday morning and the group ventured out in a convey to Heathrow airport. 

Once we arrived it was straight running through check in, security, breakfast and onto the plane! 11 hours later and we touched down in LA to sunny skies and warm weather! 

Loaded up into the cars and then onward to the hotel! 

A quick unpack, freshen up and out for dinner at the local diner where students had their first experience of US portion sizes!! 

Back to the hotel for an early night ready for the morning and unpacking the robots!!