Today was the day we finally got to see the arena! At 10:00, Tycho, Christiaan and Robin (there was a maximum of three team members) were allowed to go to the arena and get a glimpse of the test course that will be used for the final runs.
And wow! The Americans do know how to put up a show! The test course is a mock-up of a space mission on a far-away planet. On that far away planet, the avatar needs to discuss with a mission commander, needs to turn a switch, grab a (full) battery (which apparently means it is a lot heavier), drill a screw out of a wall and find a rough stone. The whole arena is set in a huge stadium, which will accommodate the +2000 registered physical guest of the ANA Avatar XPRIZE finals. The stadium also has commentator booth and is fully equipped with cameras for the livestream. They’ll truly make it a sports event!
Are you interested to follow the event live as well? That is possible (either physically, or via a livestream). If you want to know how, follow this link: Join or watch the finals event live – i-BOTICS. Unfortunately, we do not yet know when we will be broadcasted, this depends on the qualification tomorrow.
We are not able to show pictures of the test course yet, they want to keep it a suprise. However, we did build a mock-up. A bit less “camera ready” but just as functional. A picture of the mock-up can be found above.
Next to the arena tour, we had to do a safety check (which we passed!!!) and we were invited for a team photo with the team and EVE!
The rest of the day was planned for testing. However, bad luck here. Something went wrong with the XPRIZE network, causing a lot of teams to have problems connecting with their robots. To make up for this, we will get a dedicated network test moment tomorrow, but it was less than we had hoped for.
Next to the network test, tomorrow will also be the day of the qualifications! The top 16 teams (that will get at least a minimum amount of 4 points) will qualify and will be able to perform on the 4th in the (livestreamed) finals. Exciting and nerve-recking at the same time… We’ll keep you posted!
