Week 1

We wrote the Flight of the
Phantom Phoenixes Weblog
during our stay in Bremen
for the International Finals. 		Diary Entries copied from the Flight of the Phantom Phoenixes Weblog:
30th March - The Day after the National Finals

10th June - Bremen Day 1 (Trip)
11th June - Bremen Day 2
12th June - Bremen Day 3
13th June - Bremen Day 4
14th June - Bremen Day 5
17th June - Bremen Day 8
18th June - Bremen Day 9

                       

This week we have come up with about the first 40 seconds of our dance.
The baby phoenixes are coming on a treat, and are programmed for about 1 minute.
The middle phoenixes are still emerging from the ashes!!!
The big VEX robot is taking shape and we are learning how to program in ‘c’ which has been very successful thanks to the brilliant help system!

Return to top
30th March
- The Day after the National Finals
Having won the National Finals of the RobocupJunior Dance Competition, our team are really excited at the prospect of going to Bremen in Germany to represent the UK!!!

Diary Entry

    WOW! The Flight of the Phantom Phoenixes are going to represent the UK at the International robocup finals in Bremen in Germany! At the national competition, there were 8 teams competing in our category; secondary dance. We will go to Bremen along with ‘The Lighthouse Men’ who came second and they will also represent the UK.
    The international competition is being held from 14-20 June; very very soon, only 76 days away!

    The National Competition was held yesterday; the 29th March at Cranfield University. The day was full of excitement, nerves and anticipation, we performed our dance quite early; we were 3rd to perform. When we got to the competition, everyone was nervous and excited; there was a lot to sort out and prepare. As the judges were setting out the dance area we realised that our dance wasn’t going to fit in the given area, as we thought that it would be possible to perform the dance facing vertically however it wasn’t, therefore we all panicked and had to change the dance so that there was sufficient space for the robots. However we managed to resolve the problem in time to perform the dance.
    After we had performed the dance, we didn’t have to panic and we could remain reasonably calm for the rest of the day. We all enjoyed watching the other teams perform their dances and had a great day.
    The judges then later came round to look at our poster boards and our website; we also had the projector running Sophie’s presentation and visualisation. The judges asked us questions about our robots and dance - we answered them; and then we watched some other team’s performances.
    Then at 3:00 everyone got extremely nervous again but everyone was enormously pleased and amazed when we discovered we were through to the international finals.

So now we just have to prepare for the International finals in Bremen, in 76 days!

Return to top
10th June
- Bremen Day 1 (Trip)

Diary Entry

    We are finally here. We arrived at about 11 o'clock last night at our hotel, but we were all hyper and it didn't seem late.

    To get to the hotel we had to ride on two trams and a bendy bus which gave us a chance to look at Bremen, and so far Bremen looks really nice. We all screamed with excitment when, while we wating for the bus, we saw a poster advertising robocup 2006.

    It was really hot last night, as we never quite cooled down from our journey to the airport on the school (green) minibus, on which we didn't quite get the hang of the airconditioning.

    After we checking in to the hotel we went for a walk along the water front outside our hotel (which is a really really cool hotel.) On our travels we found a spinny thing which we all sat on and spun around. It was like a roundabout except it moved up and down too, (embarrassing pictures to follow.)

Sunday Morning (11-06-06)
    We were all sound asleep until Lizzy rang us up at about half 7 telling us to write this weblog!!

(Text copied from The Flight of the Phantom Phoenixes WebLog)

Return to top
11th June
- Bremen Day 2

Diary Entries

1

    After breakfast; we went outside to practise our dance, much to the amusement of the bemused kitchen staff... we got a clap at the end our routine that we performed on our makeshift stage of splintery decking.

    After enduring our ICT Exam, we waited for the robots to come, by car, which kept on getting delay and then delayed. At precisely 1:21 they arrived, they have been the only car to arrive for about 24 hours, it desolate around here but....nice.

2

    The day started with Lizzy ringing Beth’s mobile and waking us up, as their clocks were wrong, and they thought it was very late.

    We walked to an island, and explored the area near our hotel, and then we had to go back to the hotel and take our ICT exam. YAY!!! We then had relaxation time which was spent laying in bed before the robots arrived. Following the arrival of our robots, we then had to spend ages unpacking the car, and deciding where to put things. Unfortunately, it took a very long time to make all of our things fit between the rooms.

    After lunch we went and explored Bremen, which is a really pretty town. We looked inside the Cathedral (which was nice and cold on a boiling hot day like today), and dipped our feet in the fountain, but unfortunately we didn’t get any ice cream!!!!!!

    Then we had dinner at the Hotel, which was yummy, and we had 3 whole courses, before another evening walk, and when its dark we are going on yet another walk to look at the pretty colourful lights.

PS Lucy, Beth and Becca’s room keys are VERY unreliable

(Text copied from The Flight of the Phantom Phoenixes WebLog)

Return to top
12th June
- Bremen Day 3

Diary Entry

Another hot day in Bremen! We began our day by rebuilding the robots, and to our surprise they all worked! YAY! Touch wood they will stay this way for the competition.

This afternoon we went for another walk around Bremen. We went to the conference centre where the competition is being held (it was huge!!!) and we registered. We got really cool passes that will let us go free on the public transport and we got robocup rucksacks.

We were going to go to a museum but it turns out that it is closed on Mondays!

We are having loads of fun and keep giggling, loudly, for example at dinner we decided that for a joke we would et our meal with our knives and folks the wrong way around, it was really funny.

After we had had our dinner we went for another walk, and again we played on the twirly thingy, we also ran up the skateboard ramps and slid down them (this left black marks on our trousers.!!!!)

(Text copied from The Flight of the Phantom Phoenixes WebLog)

Return to top
13th June
- Bremen Day 4

Diary Entries

1

    Todays lowest temperature was 30 degrees!!! In other words, it is soooooooo hot!!!!!

    This morning we finished reassembling the robots, then we had to unassemble them to be able to transport them to the competition venue tomorrow. We saw the stage yesterday, so are slightly apprehensive about the size of it - it looked enormous and very scary; but veryveryvery exciting at the same time.

    After a brief lunch (the morning having consisted of coutless robot runs and dance practices, trying to evade slightly overenthusiastuic phoenixes) we headed out, in 'hot' heat, with straightened hair, sorry if you don't understand that, to the botanical gardens. We saw turtles and otters! (Somehow we were convinced to swap lives wih Lizzy and Beth, which was... interesting).

2

    Today was a very hot day, of 35 degrees !

    After breakfast this morning we went for our daily morning walk,and played on the spinny thing. Beth fell backwards down the skateboard ramp, but can't remember, we think she temporarily blacked out!.!.!.!.!

    After that we did some more roboting in the hotel. All of them work,hooray! we also tried to pack some stuff for tomorrow when it's the practise day.

    This afternoon we went out to the Botanical gardens whichw as really pretty but hot! We saw an otter! (Mrs Diplock thought it was a duck, accidentally) We also had our first German ice cream because it was hot. After that we came back to the hotel and had very cold showers!!

(Text copied from The Flight of the Phantom Phoenixes WebLog)

Return to top
14th June
- Bremen Day 5

Diary Entry

    The rest of our teams are dancing like robots somewhere or another, so unfortunately for you, you have to endure yet another of our weblog entries which we hasten to add, are getting more and more tedious by the day!! Today was the setup day for ROBOCUP JUNIOR WORLD FINALS 2006!!!!..... After a very early start of 6:30, we headed of to the Messe Bremen. We arrived by tram, car and taxis, just managing to keep our phoenixes intact. We ended up getting shouted at by a very angry guard who wouldn't let us go in the gate we were meant to be, but eventually we got in and got set up. Several phoenixes had to be rebuilt... At 10:30 we had a practise slot, that went better than we could have ever expected; the German television crew even asked us if they could film us...... this was only the practise so the birds wern't even 'fluffled' up properly. We spent a very very very long time consulting with the stage crew; trying to get our lighting (which consists of 4 moving heads & Parkans), music and backdrop to work. We had slight language difficulties between English & German... so it was very hard to get much across.

(Text copied from The Flight of the Phantom Phoenixes WebLog)

Return to top
17th June
- Bremen Day 8

(Brief) Diary Entry

    Through to Finals - Flight of the Phantom Phoenixes are within the top 8 RobocupJunior Dance Teams in the World!!! 3 team members ill with food poisoning today; so Josie, Rebecca and I performed on our own - 3 people to start 11 robots... only Josie and I danced... Despite difficulties setting up & performing in time limit with the 3 of us, all our robots worked except the eggling phoenix. Sorry, we are working to get all the robots sorted for tomorrow's final performance....!!!! - not much time. Redoing fledgling's tail & feathers, Rebatterying & rebuilding nestlings & hatchlings to ensure reliability, Practicing eggling so that it does hatch tomorrow

(Text copied from The Flight of the Phantom Phoenixes WebLog)

Return to top
18th June
- Bremen Day 9

Diary Entry

    Yay we won! We had a brilliant day today, and all of our hard work paid off. Once again, we began our day with an early start, as breakfast was at 7am, and Lucy and I only got up at 6.50 am! After a very small breakfast, as people's stomachs were still feeling fragile, we had all of quarter of an hour to get into our skirts, and to get our hair done. The first taxi arrived, and Josie, Sophie, Lucy, Genna, Dr. Hughes and I (the ones who weren't feeling ill) went to the competition. We then spent ages and ages going through all of the various checklists for the robots, and at 9.30, the Primary Dance Finals began. We helped the Lighthouse Men set up, and then went back to get our robots, feeling extremely nervous. One of the Nestlings had been misbehaving earlier in the morning, and we were worried about it starting, but luckily it did, and we had a PERFECT RUN with the robots. The next part of the day was spent hanging around, waiting for the award ceremony that would tell us the results. Having been delayed from 4pm, the award ceremony finally began at 4,40, and we waited with baited breath to see if we had won or not. The first time we went up to the stage was to receive a prize for Best Costume, and then the winners were announced. The Flight of the Phantom Phoenixes have won Robocup Junior Dance Primary 2006!!!

(Text copied from The Flight of the Phantom Phoenixes WebLog)

Return to top

This website has been written as part of the Robocup Competition 2006 Robotic Dance design project.