Texas State Tournament Results

Great job to all the ARCers who attended the Texas State Tournament this past week!

Eighteen ARCers came to White Settlement and had an absolute blast. I also feel that ARC really functioned like a close-knit family at this last tournament. It was very touching. We were blessed enough to have Alex MacDonald from BARC join us as well. ARC did a fantastic job in making him feel welcome. This was his first major tournament to go to and at the end of it all he told us that he enjoyed it so much that he wished that he had been doing it all year long. Madelaine Sullivan, a founding ARC member, was here in the US to have her passport renewed and she attended the entire State Tournament. It was great seeing her again and perhaps she'll send us a report on how the Sullivan family is doing in South Africa.

To see the full results of the tournament you can visit the Larimer Family Website. In the meantime, here's a quick rundown of how ARC did:

Apologetics: SF, SF, SF, SF, 4th, 3rd, 2nd

Duo Interp: SF

Epository: SF, SF, 3rd

Humorous Interp: 3rd

Impromptu: SF, SF, 6th

Open Interp: SF, 5th

Original Oratory: 8th, 4th, 3rd, 1st (Texas State Champion)

Persuasive: SF

IE Sweepstakes: 16th, 11th, 5th

TP debate: 19th, 14th

LD debate: 14th, 11th, 8th, 7th, 5th

LD speaker: 14th, 13th, 12th, 11th, 7th, 3rd

In addition, ARCers also received 5 timer awards during the Friday evening banquet.

I believe that all of us thoroughly enjoyed the tournament, and we're very excited for those  of us who qualified for the first time to Regionals in certain events.

For those of us who did better than our wildest dreams, don't become complacent with how you did. It's been said before but I'll say it again, success is a poor teacher. Keep looking for ways to improve your cases/speeches. Don't let yourself rest upon the laurels of victory.

For those of us who didn't do quite as well as we had hoped, don't be discouraged or let yourself be put down. Look at how much you've improved over the season. Just because things didn't go the way we might have hoped doesn't mean we failed. God has a reason for everything that happens whether it's in winning or losing. I'm not saying that to be sappy, I'm saying that because it's true.

For everyone, remember that it doesn't matter how well we did or didn't do. It doesn't even matter what we learned. What matters is how we use what we learned.

Back From Dallas

After an exhausting but exciting speech and debate tournament in Dallas, the families of ARC have returned to their respective homes in the Austin area. I won't go into all of the details of the tournament right now, but check back here later for a quick run down of how ARC did at the tournament.

What I really want to say is that on Wednesday morning, the day we drove up to the tournament, Caleb Cruce's grandmother died. This morning we drove straight from Dallas and attended her memorial service. They said a lot at her service. They spoke of her life and her walk with Jesus Christ. They told stories about her growing up. And they spoke of her deep involvement with her grandsons. They said so much, and they said it so well. There's not much for me to say, but I'll offer this meager effort.

A few of you may remember that Caleb was a student in ARC in its founding year. He was also one of my debate partners that year. I've known Caleb since I was six, but I only really got to know his grandmother over the past year. One of the last memories that I have of Ms. Norma is when I was at Caleb's house about a month ago. He and I were practicing some music and Ms. Norma sat there with us in her wheelchair, listening to us play.

Let's be serious, Caleb and I are not maestros and we were not playing Stravinsky. I remember thinking that any other 80-year old woman would have been ready to leave as soon as she could, or at least asked for ear-plugs. But instead she sat there and never complained about the music. She never expressed dislike, and she never asked for us to cease and desist.

Rather, she sat there contentedly and enjoyed every moment watching her grandson and his friend struggle to make a melody. She applauded our efforts. And no matter how loud we were, how many notes we missed, or how many times our voices cracked, she still delighted in every minute of it. Because to her ears it wasn't a cacophony, it was a symphony.

NCFCA Texas State Tournament in Dallas

I guess this little bit of writing would fall underneath the "ideas" category of, "The thought, ideas, and adventures of Paul Hastings".

For the past week and for the next few days the members of ARC have furiously been preparing for the CowTown Open Tournament from March 27-29 held in White Settlement, TX. Even as I type, all through-out the Austin area speeches are receiving adjustments, debate cases are being souped up, and virtually half of the students are at their wit's end. Tonight and tomorrow students(myself included) will be awake until the wee hours of the morning feverishly trying to find that right combination of "amazing, killer words" for the State Tournament.

Its at moments like these that we begin wondering if caffeine can be fed intravenously or if the human body can die from sleep deprivation. I know there has to be a moral about putting things off until the last minute, I just can't get my shaking fingers to hold still long enough to figure it out. My eyes are so tired. Maybe I'll just study the inside of eyelids for a moment...

Robot Pictures From the Houston Chronicle

The Houston Chronicle has uploaded a gallery of 35 photos from one of the elimination rounds on Saturday. See here.

Below is a picture of the 1st and 2nd seeded robots. They were arguably the two best robots at the tournament. They're two of the three robots from the alliance that defeated us in quarter-finals.


Team 118 is from the Houston area, while team 501 came all the way from New Hampshire.

Easter

The following was written by one of our family's friends:

Easter is early this year. Easter is always the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the Spring Equinox (which is March 20). This dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that Hebrew people used to identify Passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar

Based on the above information, Easter can actually be one day earlier (March 22) that is rare.

Here's the interesting information.  This year is the earliest Easter any of us will ever see the rest of our lives! And only the most elderly of our population have ever seen it this early (95 years old or above). And none of us have ever, or will ever, see it a day earlier!

Here are the facts:

1) The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now). The last time it was this early was 1913 (so if you're 95 or older, you are the only ones that were around for that!).

2) The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in the year 2285 (277 years from now). The last time it was on March 22 was 1818. So, no one alive today has or will ever see it any earlier than this year!

If you're a math person then I'm sure you'll find the above facts fascinating. But no matter what the mathematical reasoning, what really matters is that 1980 years and 1 day ago the Son of God was dead and was lying in a tomb. But just a few days later the Son of God broke the chains of death, destroyed the power of sin, and victoriously rose to life. My God is alive and my God desires that none would perish and that all would accept the gift that of eternal life that He offers.

Romans 6:4(ESV) "We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life."

Third Day of Houston FIRST Robotics Tournament

So after all of the difficulties that we had with our robot during our first 4 rounds yesterday, we seemed to have fixed the bugs and won our last 3 matches of that day. That was yesterday on Friday. Today on Saturday morning we only had 3 rounds left and we were ready. We gave it all we had and with a little luck we managed to win all 3 of our preliminary rounds today. So our total preliminary record was:

Match 1: Loss 38-50
Match 2: Loss 40-44
Match 3: Loss 0-30
Match 4: Loss 26-28
Match 5: Win 44-4
Match 6: Win 46-26
Match 7: Win 22-0
Match 8: Win 20-0
Match 9: Win 18-0
Match 10: Win 60-24

We went from being 42nd seed(out of 46 teams) after our fourth match, to being 11th seed after our tenth match. Needless to say my team was ecstatic. At this point the top 8 seeded teams would now each ask 2 other teams to join their permanent alliance for the elimination rounds. Last year we weren't in the top 8 seeds (we were towards the bottom of the pack)and none of the top 8 seeds asked us to join them. But this year, since we were 11th seed we hoped that we had a high chance of being chosen by one of the top 8 seeds. All the teams had about 10 minutes to strategize about which teams to pick. Since we were 11th seed there was only a rare possibility that we might somehow find ourselves moved up to a seed high enough to pick other teams. I was chosen by my team to be our student representative to go down onto the field.

The seeds starting choosing and interestingly enough seed 1 chose seed 2 making all of the teams roll up by one seed. Suddenly, my team became 10th seed. Twice more one of the top 8 seed teams asked one of the other top 8 seed teams to join their alliance, and suddenly my team found ourself as seed 8. I had about 20 seconds to choose our two alliance partners and actually the second choice was more or less random. I wish that we had an hour to choose alliances but we had make our decisions immediately and ask over the microphone. But hey, that's FIRST.

We entered the quarter-finals to fight for the best 2 out of 3. Since my alliance was led by the 8th seed(us) we would have to face the alliance led by the 1st seed(they also had the original 2nd seed as well). We knew we were drastically outmatched, but we gave it a shot. In the 1st match we lost 76 to 16. In other words they just creamed us. In our second match a miracle more less occurred and we snatched a victory from the jaws of defeat with a win of 48 to 36. Our third match would determine which alliance would move on. Accordingly we lost 82 to 12. But my team still enjoyed every moment of it. The alliance that beat us went on to win 2nd place in the tournament.

You can find most of the match scores here. My team is "2158 the ausTIN CANS".

During the awards ceremony we received the "Johnson & Johnson Gracious Professionalism Award" and we were runner-up in the "Underwriters Laboratories Industrial Safety Award". One of the rookie teams in Austin that we mentored did very well, earning the "Rookie All-Star Award" giving them a slot to the World Championship in Georgia. Three of the four teams from Austin competed in the quarter-finals with one of them advancing to semi-finals. So I believe Austin did quite well overall.

Even more so I believe that our team specifically did a fantastic job. From not even competing last year in the quarter-finals, to actually being an alliance lead this year, I think that we proved a second year team can be a force to be reckoned with(not to brag or anything, right?). I look forward to seeing how the Anderson Robotics team does next year.

Second Day of Houston FIRST Robotics Tournament

We left my brother's apartment at 7am and arrived at the facility at 8am. Our first match was at 10:12 but in the meantime I was nervously practicing the presentation.


At 10:40 my team entered the Chairman's Presentation room and introduced ourselves to the 3 judges. The rules pack said that the format was 5 minutes of presentation followed by 5 minutes of Q&A. So the speech was accordingly made that way. However the judges seemed to part from that by asking us questions while we were still half-way through the power-point. To further complicate matters, after we answered their questions and continued with the power-point we would come across slides that were now redundant. So what were we supposed to do? Not address the slides? Cover the material again? But in the end, the Chairman's Presentation went fairly well and we didn't fail too miserably. We'll find out the results tomorrow.


During the day Paul S., a friend of mine from speech and debate, showed up to share in the festivities.


Christina and I also made a cool new friend.



After the presentation, the rest of our team informed us about the details of our first match. One of our 2 alliance partners for that match hadn't passed inspection. So it was 2 robots(our alliance) against 3 robots(opposing alliance). We gave it what we had but just couldn't pull it off. In the 2nd match we had both alliance partners and started off better, but then we got tangled up in an opposing robot and toppled over. Our alliance still would have won, but my team was assessed a 10 point penalty giving us a loss. In our 3rd match we started off well again but discovered too late that our software had been damaged by our fall in the previous match. We lost again. In our 4th match the wiring to our arm became unplugged during game-play so we couldn't operate our appendage. Instead we drove around and around in circles and missed getting a tie by just 1 lap.


In our 5th match our arm was still malfunctioning so again we just drove in circles. It finally paid off in our first victory. In our 6th match our arm still wasn't working so we used the same strategy and got another win. In our 7th and final match of the day our arm was finally working. Plus one of the teams on the opposing alliance was given 6 penalties(I think it was a record). So we ended with a victory.

Our current record:
Match 1: Loss 38-50
Match 2: Loss 40-44
Match 3: Loss 0-30
Match 4: Loss 26-28
Match 5: Win 44-4
Match 6: Win 46-26
Match 7: Win 22-0

Our current standing is 28th place out of 46 teams. So yeah, we're in the bottom half.


Anyway, our next match starts tomorrow at 9:42am. We have 3 matches left before the breaks to quarter-finals at noon. Keep praying that my team would have cool nerves and that we won't get too frustrated with each other.

First Day of Houston FIRST Robotics Tournament

We left at 5am this morning (Thursday) on our way to Houston. We had driven for a whole hour and had reached the Austin airport when I realized I had made a horrible mistake. In my grogginess that morning, I had left my laptop that contained the presentation I had created, at home on my desk. Bummer. So we made a 2 hour detour as we drove all the way back home to get the computer.

But enough said, we got to Houston (well actually Katy) without further incident and I made contact with my team. Below is a picture of the stadium and the field. Behind the black curtain are the pits where the teams work on their robots in between rounds.



Today was only practice rounds. So the teams got to get a feel for how opponents' robots functioned and how they played on the field. Below our team stands beside the playing field. They're the 4 guys in the yellow shirts at the bottom right corner. Our robot is the one with blue bumpers.



Below is picture from inside the pits. I'm the oddball wearing the blue shirt.



After watching the other robots up close for the first time I concluded that while I believe ours is superior to some of them, the ones that are better than ours are much better. So I don't have any huge expectations, but it would be nice to at least advance to the elimination matches on Saturday.

Tomorrow (Friday), at 10:40am I and the 2 other students from my team are supposed to present our "Chairman's Presentation". We have 7 qualification (preliminary) matches tomorrow and 3 on Saturday. Pray for us and the rest of my team.

ARC Alumni Wins 3rd Place at National Tourney

I learned today that Jonathan Rodgers, an ARC alumni, garnered 3rd place attorney at the National Mock Trial Tournament held in Memphis, Tennessee this past weekend. Students from Ohio State, Duke University, The University of Georgia, and other prestigious institutions vied for the chance to be named an “All-National Attorney”. Jonathan, a sophomore at Houston Baptist University, is now a proud wearer of that title for the first time.

The first time I met Jonathan was at the 2005 CHEACT Homeschool book-fair here in Austin. Even then I was struck by his vivid speaking style and later learned that he and his sister had both taken speech and communication classes previously. They joined ARC that season, and have been actively involved in it ever since.

At his first major tournament(in Houston) I had the pleasure to see one of Jonathan's Team Policy rounds with his sister. I believe they were Negative. Anyway, the resolution was about Medical Malpractice and I remember Jonathan using the phrase "Ad hoc proctor hoc" to which one of the competitors beside me whispered, "What? What'd he say?". Jonathan and his sister later placed 3rd place TP team overall.

Less than two weeks ago I saw Jonathan again. Where else but in Houston, in the same building as at that first tournament and on the same floor. He wasn't a competitor, but rather an ARC alumni. He hasn't changed much(well maybe thinner glasses and maybe a little taller) and he still has his vivid and energetic way of speaking. We didn't even talk about his own tournaments or how his mock trial season had been going. But today, when I learned about his success I wasn't surprised.

Keep after it man.

BEST, FIRST, Robots, and Power-Point

Many of you know that I'm involved in home-school speech and debate activities. This is my fourth and final year as a competitor in the NCFCA. This past June I attended the NCFCA National Tournament in Belton, TX. One of the competitors I met did an expository about LEGO Robotics. While I never had the opportunity to watch his speech, I did get the chance to examine his props(what else but LEGO pieces?) and speak with him.

After the tournament was over I didn't think that much about his speech until the fall. I suddenly realized, "Hey, I'm a senior. This is the last year that I can do a whole bunch of stuff. Wouldn't be so cool to compete in LEGO robotics?" So I looked up the information on the internet and realized that it was only for middle-schoolers and that I was way too old to compete. However, there was an alternative competition for high-schoolers. But instead of making Lego robots, they make 110 pound monstrosities of steel.

After several emails and a lot of unanswered phone calls, I finally found a team in Austin that would accept a home-schooler. So in October I joined the Anderson Robotics team based in Anderson High School.


The competition for the steel robots started in January, but beginning in the fall they would participate in a precursor event using robots primarily made out of wood. We were given a kit of parts in September and had 6 weeks to make a remote-controlled robot out of it in accordance to the game rules. See here for pictures. We competed in the Capitol BEST competition in October, and after unexpected success we advanced to the Texas BEST Championship in late November (the highest level since there is no National Championship) and placed 25th. So our team, which was essentially a rookie team since none of us had ever competed in BEST, got 25th place out of around 200 teams across Texas.


But that is just the background. In January we were once again given six weeks to make a robot for a specific game. But instead of wood, we could use iron, re bar, aluminum, etc. It also had to run autonomously for 15 seconds. We finished the robot and shipped it via FedEx in mid-February. When fully extended it just barely reaches 14 feet in height. Pictures of our efforts can be seen here.

We have now been anxiously waiting for our Regional Competition in Katy, TX on March 20-22. We will compete head-to-head against 45 other robots. Five robots will automatically advance to the World Championship event in April. The others may or may not advance depending on the specific team.

This is all to say that two nights ago at 11:40pm I was informed that our vice-president on our team had essentially quit. This student was supposed to have been working on the "Chairman's Presentation" for the past 2 weeks. Now our head mentor wanted to know if I could put together the "Chairman's Presentation" for the FIRST Robotics Regional in less than 6 days.

This is going to be so cool. I get to create, write, and deliver a 5-minute Power-Point presentation about how our team has spread the FIRST(For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) vision among our community, followed by a 5-minute Q&A from the judges. I and 2 other students that I'm supposed to ask to join me will make our pitch this Friday.

The one hitch is that until yesterday, I have never used "Microsoft Power-Point" in my life. So right now I'm wrestling with how to get individual lines to show up when I push "Enter" and not all at once when the page loads. Fortunately, a lot of the configuration and methods seem very similar to "Microsoft Frontpage". I even found how to insert pictures and backgrounds. Incredible.

Thomas and Grace

Read the post here from Thomas Umstattd.

I saw this coming a long time ago. Ever since the ARC Christmas party and the Christmas Evangelsm Boot Camp. So now that I think about it, Thomas should so totally (check out my webspeak, huh?) ask me to play and sing the "Thomas Life Story" song for Grace.

I've known Thomas for about 4 years now, and I met Grace and her family a little over a year ago. I met both of them through ARC (that amazing institution of speech that always keeps its website updated), which is where I believe they met each other. I can say (and write) that this is going to be an amazing and God-honoring relationship. I'm not just saying that to be nice, I'm saying that because it's true.

At this point I could elaborate about how messed up our world is and how we need shining examples of God-fearing relationships. How our culture today is driven by sin and fleeting passions. How true love comes not from emotions, but rather from God.

But really, other people have explained that a lot better than I can so I'll leave it at that.

NCFCA National Open Tournament in Houston

The NCFCA(National Christian Forensics and Communication Association) hosted one of their three National Open Tournaments in Houston from March 5-8, 2008. It was a large affair with 8 out of the 10 regions represented. Any competitor who advanced in any event would be qualified to compete in that event at their local Regional Tournament. In addition, competitors who received 1st or 2nd place in any event would automatically qualify for the National Tournament in that event.

Congratulations to all of the ARC(Austin Rhetoric Club) students who attended the tournament last week. Several ARCers participated in certain events for the first time ever, and proved to themselves that the experience wasn't quite as horrific as they had anticipated.

All of ARC did a fantastic job in welcoming the Blanchard brothers and Danielle Bruns and her partner from California. I hope that everyone got a chance to talk extensively with them. The enormous "Thank-you" poster that was organized by Alex and Shaney was delivered to Mr. Larimer on closing night and was a great success. Our thanks go to ARC for helping us get all of those signatures.

The competition was very tough, with almost 400 students from around the nation representing 8 of the 10 Regions. Approximately 76 Lincoln-Douglas debaters participated perhaps making it the largest LD tournament ever hosted by the NCFCA in its entire 12-year history. For a quick rundown of how ARC did, here are the results based off of the NCFCA website:

Apologetics: SF, 7th

Dramatic Interp: SF, 8th

Duo Interp: 8th

Humorous Interp: 5th

Impromptu: SF, 6th

Open Interp: SF

Original Oratory: SF, SF, 4th

IE Sweepstakes: 22nd, 8th

LD debate: 29th, 26th, 4th

LD speaker: 13th, 4th

Furthermore, 5 ARC students received various timing awards, including the 1st place timing award along with its prestigious "Starbucks Gift Card".

I know that we all had experiences that we would rather not have experienced, whether it was not doing as well in an event that we wanted to, a judge not paying attention when it was crucial, fouling up our lines during a speech, or losing to a really bad debate team. But whatever it was its important not to mope about how poorly we did, but rather to learn from our mistakes and think about what we can improve on.

For those who did really well, don't allow success to fill you up. Remember that success is a poor teacher. We learn the most when we fail. But no matter how we did or how we fared, everything happened because God said that it would happen. We may not see why, and we may not agree, but God always has a purpose as to why things happen the way that they do.

I know that everyone enjoyed the tournament immensely and I believe that everyone did a fantastic job by giving it what they had.

I can't wait to see everyone's speeches in Dallas in less than three weeks from now. For some of us, this may be the last time that we give a certain speech, so let's give it all that we have and hold nothing back.

Thanks to everyone,
Paul

...and here we go

A blog entry by Paul Hastings. Wow. I really never thought that I would see the day.

But that day is here, and our day has arrived, yet let it not be just our day, but rather, our decade.

'So let it be written, so let it be done.'