I believe I will stay inside and watch the Robots

There was a time when I would have laughed if you had told me that I would stay inside on a beautiful spring day to watch a robotics competition.  Then I had kids, one of which is a self-proclaimed robot nerd, so there I was this weekend, watching the action from the sidelines.  My robot child is involved with FIRST Robotics FRC which is high school aged teams.  It’s my job to 1. Take pictures.  2. Sometimes provides snacks.  3. Nod like I know what my robot child is talking about when she is explaining stuff to me. So this weekend I took pictures, here is a look inside a competition; first a bird’s eye view from the stands:

ISO 1250 50mm 0ev f/7.1 1/60

Second, some of the bots on the field:

ISO 2000 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/125

Third, one bot ready to launch a ball:

ISO 2000 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/125

Lastly, a partial view of the pits where the robots are worked on in between matches:

ISO 1250 50mm 0ev f/7.1 1/60

Three things that going to a FIRST Robotics competition will teach you are false: 1. Kids these days are slackers. Wrong, I’m sure some are but then so are some adults. 2. If your robots is broken, too bad so sad.  Wrong, request a part and another team will help you out, even if they are competing against you. 3. Robot children can’t dance. Wrong, they can just as well or badly as the general population.

So, need an indoor activity in April and happen to be in St. Louis?  Stop by the Championship and check out all the fun and be amazed by the brain power kids today have to offer.

This post was written in response to the Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside and the Daily Post: I Believe.

Cheers!

 

 

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside the Zoo

The St. Louis Zoo has an event every year for folks who participate in their Zoo Parent program.  One of the presentations was a talk by an orangutan keeper.  She was showing how they train the orangutans to present body parts to the keeper so that any medical care they might need can be as non-evasive as possible:

ISO 1250 50mm 0ev f/6.3 1/40

This wasn’t a particularly easy photo to get.  It was a very contrasty scene.  I was standing in the shade, as was the keeper, but you can see that it was very sunny in the background.  I did not want to use my flash in this situation as I thought it would be too distracting.  So, I have my ISO set high and my shutter speed is slow.  The keeper is a bit blurry, but I was OK with that in the case, because I really want you to look beyond the keeper to the orangutan.  I edited this photo in Photoshop.  I added a Levels adjustment and slid the black slider to the left.  I also did both some dodging and burning on the square that includes the orangutan.  Parts of it needed to be darkened and parts lightened.  When I was dodging and burning I also changed the opacity level of that tool, because having it set at 100% seemed a bit too heavy handed.

Watching presentations like this are very interesting to me, because it is just a glimpse of what goes on inside a zoo.  Inside is the theme for this week’s photo challenge at WordPress, so you can click here to see other interpretations.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside

The WordPress weekly photo challenge theme is “inside”.  Here is the photo I thought of:

ISO 500 105mm f/10 1/30

Taken this spring, just before the baby robins left.  Can you imagine how crowded it must have felt inside this nest?

Cheers!