#SaintRobotica

The contestants! In the background, hole 1 of 3 being set up!
Last week Friday, I headed to the University of Northern Iowa to participate in the Midwest Instruction and Computing Symposium(MICS 2016) that ran from the Friday to Saturday. For the past two weeks, I have been working with Prof. Tom Gibbons as well as two other students, Michael and Sara, on designing and programming a robot that plays mini-golf! Tom, me, and another student, Hope, who was going to do a poster presentation, left at 7a.m. and we arrived late as one of the tires burst and had to be replaced. This took almost two hours as we had to wait. Luckily, we arrived safe and sound and in time for the robotics challenge in which our robot, coined SaintRobotica by one of the judges, came fourth. There were about 11 teams participating.

With SaintRobotica, the mini-golf champ from Duluth, at the Uni of Northern Iowa
We had a pizza party after the contest and had enough time to go around time and explore, and had dinner at Mulligans before going back to the hotel we were staying in for the night. On Saturday, we attended several talks and presentations before Hope finally gave her poster presentation. After a few more talks, a key address, and lunch, we hit the road and headed back for CSS! I had a wonderful time and it was great experience for me as I am headed for a Math and Computer Science track. It was my first time to Iowa which made it the more fascinating. The University of Northern Iowa’s campus is so gorgeous!! Just saying 🙂

In Cedar Falls, Iowa, after the contest!!
Tags: CIS, computer science, contest