A perfect way to start the day! Lots of euphoria just before and after the final buzzer -- Sophia and Erika's performance is at least as exciting as that of the robot.

Charles and Matt give their trademark jump at the instant the robot is launched. Nooooooo! We lost"Test the Nanocable" when the truck fell from the platform. The next robot outing was flawless -- freed the nanoprobe -- removed three white atoms and no red ones -- assembled the nanotube -- started the molecular motor. Then , trouble -- the robot failed to do that nasty dead-reckoning turn when delivering the buckyball and didn't align properly after delivery, so the robot had to be manually retrieved. Then, more trouble. The space elevator failed to rise far enough . The pizza molecule delivery went fine, but we ran out of time before getting a crack at the unstainable fabric. I think the ref gave us 3 more points than she should have, because we lost bonus points when Charles retrieved the robot.

Video gremlims destroyed the first part of this clip - next time I'll buy a new tape instead of using a used one!

Another flawless robot performance until the dirt dump -- one dirt particle was left caught in the net. Jordan seems worried and Blaze's performance rivals that of Sophia and Erika as he first feigns fainting under the table and then signals two lost points to the camera.

Finally! -- Bijan and Gary have been waiting for this one all day. Ohhhhhh! Another truck dump, but everything went perfectly after that. Notice how Bijan had to remind the ref to clear the white atoms from the robot's path. That's Head Referee Bill Welch stepping up to inspect the table after the run. Bill, at no prompting from us, did his best to find something amiss with the truck setup in an effort to find just a little ground for "benefit of the doubt", but there was nothing wrong with the setup. Our perfect 400 had been run on this same table in the morning.