Breaking News: English Major Drafted Into SMU Robotics Club

So about the last place I expected to be right now was sitting at SMU's booth at a robotic submarine competition with a "Competitor" lanyard round my neck. But the Robotics Club summoned me to do my Mustang duty and I gleefully answered the call. We've decided that if anyone asks, I'm supposed to say I designed the light detection circuit (whatever that is). Club member Chris Pilcher was the actual designer, but he sadly could not attend. (Thanks for the cover, Chris!) As a technologically-illiterate English major, I feel like a spy in foreign territory.
Unlike soggy Dallas, the competition site in San Diego is temperate, sandy, and boasts a glorious ocean view. People--mostly young men--mill around comparing submarines and having technical conversations that might as well be in a foreign language for all I can understand them. The booth next to ours houses the United States Naval Academy. With their crew cuts and big, fancy robot, they're a little intimidating but very nice. On our other side is the team from San Diego, who have been really friendly and let the guys use their drill press. In fact, most everybody at the competition seems genuinely cooperative: teams borrow and lend each other tools and materials of all kinds. A couple of staff members just dropped by and listened to our wonderful story of theft and recovery; they offered to help us with anything we might need. Overall, it's a great environment to be working in.

A new development: the guys have just solved a last minute problem with some good old-fashioned Texas ingenuity. The little propellers on the robot are required to have "shrouds," which are covers that protect the divers in the water from getting their fingers chopped off by spinning propellers. What with the theft and all the hoopla surrounding it, those covers never got produced. In the last hour, these guys cut circles out of a kitchen cutting board and added the bottoms of plastic water bottles. Voila: instant propeller shrouds. The San Diego team looked on with grins. "Way to stick it to the man," one said, applauding the guys' decidely untraditional materials.

On a different note, what's the real purpose of an English major on a robotics team? Well, mostly, it was the easiest way to get me on the naval base. My fiancee, Andrew, and I are making San Diego the first stop on a month-long road trip, and I didn't much want to stay at the hotel for four days. But more importantly, I have an essential skill: the ability to write interestingly. I have thus designated myself Official Team Blogger. Austin didn't seem too upset to relinquish his blogging duties; I think he'd rather be writing code.

Apparently, the vastly important reed switch--which does something or other--has mysteriously gone missing. The drama never ends. Check back in tomorrow for the first day of actual judging.