Are you a robot nerd? I’m not, but I do have one living in my house so I am by extension. If you read this blog regularly you have probably noticed that I have children. One of them is on a FIRST Robotics team at the local high school. Yesterday was kick-off for the build season. Build Season is the six weeks that the teams have to build their robots to compete in this year’s competition. This year’s game is called Aerial Assist.
Last semester my robot child took a vinyl cutting machine that the school had but was broken, fixed it, and then used it to cut out her robotics team logo and put it on the exterior door of the robotics classroom. The logo is a variation on the school’s mascot, which is a ram. Because I am a proud mom, I took a bunch of pictures:
ISO 160 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/1000
In this case I have a fast shutter speed because I knew I was going to bracket these photos and process them into HDR images using Photomatix. I also created a black and white version:
ISO 160 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/1000
In both versions I decided to stick with trying to create photos that kept all the detail and stayed true to what you would see if you were up at the high school taking a look for yourself.
So, yesterday was the beginning of a very busy time in this household. I’m excited for my robot child, because she is excited about the start of the season. It’s a bit sad though, because a lot of my communication with her over the next six weeks will be via text.
If you’ve never heard of FIRST Robotics, maybe check out my links above, it is a really great program and they have all different age levels as well.
What do you think of the Ram logo that my robot child created? I think it is pretty cool. Feel free to leave a comment below.
Cheers!
Photography Journal Blog 
Sounds like a budding engineer. This is really cool. You must be proud.
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Believe it or not, this is just a side interest for her. She does love it though and it is very cool. I am really proud of her.
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The logo is great, but sois the fact that she fixed the broken vinyl cutter…girl after my own heart! 🙂
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🙂 It did turn out really well. She learned a lot in that class too.
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Seems she has some great creative and practical skills, it will be interesting for you to see where she takes these…
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Yes, it should be interesting 🙂
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You’ve every reason to be proud Amy … very effective.
The blue version is particularly striking !
Looking at the programme your daughter is going to pretty busy over the next few weeks .. fingers xx’d for her then 🙂
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Yes, it really is a crazy time for her. She carries a pretty heavy course load in school as well. She loves it though, I’ll let her know that you are pulling for her 🙂
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I love the ram. Tell your robot child that I wish her and her team the best of luck. Go Rams!
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I will tell her thanks 🙂
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It is a very cool, eye
catching Ram Logo
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Thanks, it is a cool logo, it turned out well in this format as well.
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Well done to your daughter. Amazing work. 🙂
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Thanks 🙂
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My niece and nephew were involved in First robotics, its a great program 🙂
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It really is, she has learned a lot. Their mentor engineers have really put a lot of work in the last few years, it is really nice that they are willing to donate their time to help young people.
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Wow! That is some talent! 🙂
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Thank you 🙂
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That is one fantastic logo Amy! You have every right to be proud hon. Great shots! 😀
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Thanks so much 🙂
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Wow, that door logo is cool.
In fact just having a robotics classroom and a competition like that sounds amazing!
Good luck to your daughter in this year’s competition!
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Thank you, I will tell her you wished her well 🙂 The robotics program in the school is new within the last few years. They are migrating away from auto repair to engineering and technology. The teacher who heads up the program is great and they have a team of mentors that really encourage the kids and teach them a lot.
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Such a great idea. Engineering always seems to suffer an image problem in the UK and I’m sure things like that would really help.
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Yes, this program does have a whole “geeky but cool” feel to it.
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Very nice. I like the colored version best. The graffiti itself has some sort of aggressive feel to it. Probably because of the sharp edges.
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Good luck on the robot competition!
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Thanks, I will tell her you said so 🙂
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I agree, I thought the colored version turned out best. I had created another version that sort of added to the gritty feel that I think the logo inspires, but in the ended decided to go with a more “real-life” looking version.
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Thanks for using my widget. I think it looks good in your blog and it’ll be easy to find your Weekly Photo Challenge posts as you keep on posting. Just remember to tag the posts correctly. I went through 3 years of WPC posts and tagged most of them today. I used to tag them with the year in the end: “weekly photo challenge 2011”, etc. But I decided to tag almost all of them with an additional tag without the year. That way I can easily look them all up later.
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Thank you for creating them, I really like them and I guess it is obvious which was my favorite:) I will say a more public thanks when I write up next week’s challenge. Up until now all mine have just the “weekly photo challenge” tag, for this particular one I am adding “weekly photo challenge 2014” and then all of them this year will have that tag and will go with this widget. I thought about adding the year to the older ones but haven’t decided if I think that is necessary at this point. I’m glad you like the way it looks and thanks for stopping by to check it out.
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That’s so cool! Btw, do I need to shoot Raw photos to create HDR?
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Thanks, and no, RAW is not necessary, jpeg shots work just fine with HDR. I just prefer to shoot in RAW if I know I am going to be doing any sort of editing. In fact you could make and HDR version out of just one jpeg if that is all you had to work with. In my opinion, it is easier and better if you have a bracketed exposure to start with, but sometimes you just don’t.
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Thank you so, so much for the details! Appreciate you sharing your expertise! I agree that you need to have a bracketed exposure to work with.
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Sure, I always enjoy talking photography with you 🙂
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You have every reason to proud of her!
All the best for 2014
from The Fabulous Four,
Dina
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Thank you, and I saw your first post for the new year on your new collaborative blog, very nice 🙂
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That’s a very impressive logo. It’s like Dodge meets the Transformers, and the three-tone colour scheme is quite attractive.
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Thanks, my child didn’t actually design the logo, but we do know the child who did, so we will let her know that you like it.
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very cool logo
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Thank you 🙂
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Ok, I’ve got a really stupid question. Did you let the camera choose the ISO? I never get settings like 160 or 320 unless I let the camera set itself. Mine doesn’t go lower on manual than 100 and it’s in increments of 200.
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In this case, yes I did, the camera chose the ISO. On this camera on settings where I can set the ISO it starts at 100, then 200, then steps of 200 from there.
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Thank you for liking my post for WPC: Family on curiositycafe.wordpress.com, so that I could find your site. The logo reminds me of some illustrations I saw recently in graphic novels, very striking! The last ten years that I taught HS (Chemistry) I had many kids involved in Robotics, it’s a great program, but SO time-consuming, as you know, just like the real world of engineering and technology. Good luck to your daughter! And I love photography, so will be back to your blog.
ps I have to reply using rainbowspinnaker, can’t figure out how to get WP to let me comment for both curiositycafe and rainbowspinnaker separately.
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Hi, thanks for your visit. I’ve been now to visit you at your rainbowspinnaker site and they are both very nice. I’m not sure why you can’t comment separately, but I am wondering if it has to do with your gravatar or e-mail? but that is just a guess. You also might want to put a permanent link on both of your blogs to your other blog, like in a sidebar or in your About section. It would make it easier for folks like me to find you at both places. Just a thought 🙂
I’m glad you like my photos of her work. Yes, it is a very time consuming program, but you certainly know that and you are also right that the science/tech field certainly is that way.
Thanks for taking the time to comment 🙂
Cheers!
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