First Robotics - Part 2

After lunch I decided I needed to get down on the track floor and check out a view closer. Visitors were allowed down on the floor but they needed to wear goggles in order to enter. I walked around the area where they were competing but I had already sketched that so I kept walking. Each team had a "pit" area where they had all their equipment and supplies to work on their robots before competing. Some teams competed several times as the teams narrowed down. I found a spot all the way in the back where team 3760 was making adjustments to their robot. I didn't have my chair with me so I ended up sitting on the edge of the track to do the sketch...not a very comfortable spot but it had a good view.

When I got back up to the stands I did a few more sketches of the people waiting. The guy with the dreadlocks was in charge of the group in yellow.

There were only a few sketchers left when we headed out to a restaurant to have a snack and share our sketches. Robotics is tiring!

First Robotics at the Armory - Part I

This past Saturday the NYC Urban Sketchers met at The Armory Track and Field Center in Upper Manhattan to sketch at the First Robotics Competition. New York City hosts 51 Robotics teams from the NY area, Turkey, the UK, Brazil, and China. Winning teams advanced from this competition to the global competition.

We selected seats in the upper stands because that made it possible to see over the heads of the people standing on the floor watching. The competition took place in the center of the tracks. The problem was it was very hard to narrow your focus when you are seeing the entire event at once...but we had comfortable seats.
 The idea was for the teams to use the robot they created to lift up the yellow cubes and place them on the platforms on the ends of the balance in the center of the sketch. Whichever team had the most cubes on their platform won the round. I used artistic license to eliminate about 75% of the people who were in my range of sight. This sketch probably took me close to 1 1/2 hours to do.

Then I sketched some of the people watching the competition and waiting for their team to appear.

At this point some of us took a break and headed out to get lunch. More tomorrow...