Today is my first day back to school from Spring Break, and honest to god, I feel relieved. It’s shocking to think that my Spring Break could have been more stressful than an average school week, but it was.

First of all, I still couldn’t get my head wrapped around what happened to my classmate Ryan. It was easy to pretend that nothing had happened, that when I went back to school, he would still be sitting in his chair smiling and saying hello.

Second, by Wednesday of Spring Break, Mr. Williams had not put in my missing grade for the physics homework, and Mr. Rubac still had not submitted the recommendation letters for the math camps I applied to which were due that Friday.

Third, I attended a 3-day FIRST robotics competition from Thursday to Saturday. The 2-hour bus trip to Houston was actually not that bad. My friend Mia was going to meet us at Channelview High School (she went to Ryan’s rosary that afternoon), so I had the whole seat to myself. I spent most of the time reading an absolutely harrowing account of black holes and dark matter, which perfectly matched the theme of this year’s robotics competition, Destination: Deep Space. When I was bored, I talked to Sergio, who sat directly behind me.

Thursday, Preparation Day for Friday’s competition

At 5:00 pm, we arrived at Channelview High School. I felt incredibly useless watching the team unload the bus, so I offered to help Sergio carry the test engine, which was mounted on a wooden board. All I had to do was to carry the engine from the bus to the pit area where they were setting up, but being the inept person that I am, I went and got myself a nasty splinter in the palm of my hand. Thus I surrendered my good-hearted attempts to assist the pit team and went to explore the campus with Teresa and Amber.

The school was kind of everything I wished our school could look like. The school premises were surrounded by tall pine trees, and the glass ceiling of the main hallway allowed natural light to stream through. There was an actual separate hall for the band hall, and the cafeteria had different serving stations in imitation of rows of restaurants seen at malls or airports.

The pit area was crowded with teams setting up their booths. Our booth was already set up, a small space consisting of a worktable and a tool-cart, and decorated plainly with the winning banner from the last competition. The booth (who we would later find out was team Pearadox) right across from us had a large metal framework, on which cardboard paintings of planets in the shape of pears were attached. It made our station look like a dinky shed.

The school closed at 10:00 pm. Mr. Williams refused to leave until the very last minute. I hadn’t eaten since lunch at noon, and I had no snacks with me, and my stomach made its dissatisfaction very clear by emitting noises similar to a disgruntled walrus.

Anyways, we decided to eat dinner at Denny’s. That was a terrible idea because Denny’s is the last place you want to go if your stomach is eating itself in hunger and you want your food served fast. It was 12:30 am when my plate finally arrived. I wasn’t even hungry anymore. I just wanted to go to the hotel and pass out on the bed.

At 1:00 am, we arrived at the Marriott hotel. Mia and I shared one hotel room. We stayed up till two in the morning writing and editing the chairman’s speech that our team was supposed to give Friday.

Friday, Competition Day 1

We arrived at the school around 7:50 am, and the school opened at 8:00 am, so we were still early. Outside the entrance, a bunch of kids from the team Cryptonite were spray-painting their hair green, and then using a ton of hairspray to shape their newly grass-colored hair in bizarre, “alien” hairstyles. Some of the more “conventional” hairstyles included green space buns or mohawks, while the really extreme ones were abstract geometric shapes or teletubby style antennas.

Inside the school, it was a busy, busy place. Many of the teams were gathered in the cafeteria, dressing and getting speeches ready. Most of the teams seemed to have their own trademark: Iron-Plaid was an all-girls team that wore plaid skirts; Energy-Heroes sported orange tutus; Cryptonite, of course, stood out with their green hair; Voltage wore bright banana yellow t-shirts; and the team captain of Pearadox wore a cape.

Most of Friday went by in a blur. Teresa, Mia, and I run through the chairman’s speech and review answers to interview questions. Then I went to watch our very first match and a couple of other ones that didn’t necessarily involve our team. For lunch, which was at 2:00 pm, we had pizza. I ate three slices because I was afraid that I wouldn’t get to eat again until midnight.

It was late afternoon when a bunch of girls, including me and Mia, were invited to a Girl’s Group activity hosted by Pearadox. It was a good opportunity for us to socialize with other girls, and make new friends. Every cell in my body was screaming as they seated us at a table with a young woman from NASA. Mia wasn’t very talkative, so I took the burden upon myself to venture out of my comfort zone and interact with this lovely stranger.

I asked her a lot of questions about NASA - when the next manned space launch would be, what she did (she designed space suits), what factors did they take into account when designing these spacesuits, and she very kindly answered them with patience. Right before I finished asking my questions, two girls from the hosting team joined us at our table.

They explained the FIRST program and this year’s game season to the NASA lady, then presented to us neat little folders they made containing information about their team. They talked to us about their team’s achievements, their goals and aspirations, their game plan, and their robot design.

“We use gravity and the concept of center of mass to get to the top platform,” one of the hosting girls, Isabella, explained. “The top of our robot is heavier than the bottom, so it can easily flip upside down onto the platform.”

The NASA lady asked Mia and me about our robot.

“Err...Our robot can do defense,” I said.

“Can your robot score cargo?” Isabella asked.

“Uh, no.”

“Can your robot secure hatch panels?”

“No, not quite.”

“Can your robot get onto the top platform?”

“Err, I don’t think so.”

“We just do really, really good defense,” Mia said, trying to talk our team up.

“Yeah,” Isabella helpfully agreed. “Different teams have different strategies; some just choose to focus more on defense,” she explained to the NASA lady.

I really liked Isabella; she was incredibly friendly (and if not for her, our robot would have sounded utterly incompetent in front of the NASA lady), and invited us to come and show the NASA lady around the pit area.

“This is our pit,” Isabella said, pointing at the artistically tasteful booth that I described earlier. All the team members in the pit swarmed up around NASA lady in a warm welcome.

Much to the chagrin of the Catholics in our team (they are not supposed to eat meat on Fridays during Lent), Mr. Williams took us to a nice steakhouse for dinner. The steak was really good. As we ate, we gossiped about the competition.

“Right now we are ranked 13th out of 35 teams,” Melanie told us.

“We’ll most likely be picked for an alliance,” Mia boastfully said. “I made friends with people from Pearadox, and they seem like they are interested in us.”

“Did you hear that Cryptonite was talking trash about us today?” Melanie asked.

“Why?” Our whole table cried in unison, outraged.

“Apparently, our robot kept ramming into them and prevented them from scoring,” Melanie said, shrugging.

Before leaving, we piled up all the one dollar bills we had on us as the tip. I even left a thank-you note.

Saturday, Competition Day 2

This was the last day of competition, the day of alliances, and the day that the winner would be announced. It should have been very exciting....but Mia and I fell asleep in the cafeteria as soon as we set our things down. We snapped back to consciousness when Teresa ran back to our table screaming, “We got picked for an alliance!”

“Really? Who picked us?” Mia asked, with a crease between her brows.

“Cryptonite and Energy-heroes.”

We all looked at each other in confusion.

“I thought they hated us,” Mia said.

“Maybe when we were going against them, but as an alliance, they don’t,” Teresa said wisely.

We watched every match, clutching each other anxiously, and then screaming in incredulity and delight as we advanced through quarterfinals into semifinals, then from semifinals to finals. Before finals began, we ran down the stands to sit as close to the field as possible.

The announcer began to announce the names of the teams competing.

“Aannnnnnnddd, last, but certainly not least, Team 3834, Craaab-Bottsssss!”

We screamed as loud as we could because compared to the other teams, we didn’t have that many people for support.

We didn’t have to though.

From the stands: “Crab-Bots! Crab-Bots! Crab-Bots!”

Echoing through the walls of the gym: “Crab-Bots! Crab-Bots! Crab-Bots!”

Ringing in our ears and resonating through our bodies: “Crab-Bots! Crab-Bots! Crab-Bots!”

We stared at each other in wonderment. People were actually cheering for us. It was like our team was the hero, Julius Caesar returning home to Rome after a long, victorious battle, people crowding in the streets to cheer for him, their beloved emperor.

Our alliance won finals effortlessly.

Energy-Heroes and Cryptonite worked together seamlessly to secure hatch panels and load cargo, making our points double, and triple.

Our robot drove around, ramming into the other teams and bashing them away from the cargo loading station.

“You just got crabbed!” Cryptonite would yell at the other teams when our robot smashed into them.

30 seconds left in the game…

Energy-Heroes propelled themselves onto the top platform.

Our robot gave the other teams a final, good push before racing back to the lower level of the habitat.

Crypotonite zoomed around, scoring 3 more cargo before climbing onto the second platform.

The buzzer sounds.

We wait for the results apprehensively.

Finally, our heads turn to watch the big screen, where the blue alliance rocket blasts off and rises above the red one.

We jumped up and grabbed each other, screaming until our voices cracked.

From across the safety tape, Mr. Williams high-fived all of us down the line.

On the bus, ready to leave...

With everything packed up in the back of the bus, we collapsed into our seats exhausted, but still excited.

Everyone tried to speak at once.

“We’re ranked 7th in the state now,” Melanie said.

“We should make buttons that say ‘Got crabbed?’ on them,” Zach suggested.

“I guess we’re buddy-buddies with Cryptonite now,” Mia said. “They talked trash about us yesterday, and now they’re calling our alliance ‘Crypto-Crabs’.”

“Poor Energy-Heroes, they’re the captains of our alliance, and they didn’t even get a part in the name,” I replied.

“You know what?” Hunter said obnoxiously. “We need to make pinchers for our robot that look like the Infinity Gauntlet.”

Mr. Williams brought around the 1st place plaque for us to sign.

Needless to say, this robotics competition trip made an unforgettable mark in my memory. Through this experience, I learned an import life lesson: you don’t have to know everything, but you must be good at one thing that gives you an opportunity to win.