The 2011 Red Herring 100 North America will be announced on June 15 in Hollywood, but in the meantime, they’ve short-listed their top 200 and Vigilant Futures is one of those on the prestigious list. We’re very proud and honoured to make it to the top 200 and look forward to the final round!
Speechless, proud and deeply moved is how I left Youth Action Montreal’s Living Your Legacy conference. The line-up of speakers the Youth Action Montreal team presented at the event was truly amazing. It was a day of great Canadians, and some of whom were from Montreal. They had Craig Kielburger from Free the Children and Me to We, David Suzuki, Co-Founder of the David Suzuki Foundation, Stephen Lewis, Co-Founder and Co-Director of AIDS-Free World, Gabriel Bran Lopez, Founder, Youth Fusion, and Kristina Partsinevelos, 5 days for the Homeless, to name a few.
David Suzuki at YAM 2011
They all spoke on different global issues that are all linked to one another.
Several Vigilantes were in attendance. A few of us were fortunate enough to attend a cocktail afterwards where we had the pleasure of speaking with some of the amazing speakers about their missions. We had the pleasure of meeting Kristina Partsinevelos from 5 days for the Homeless. Her talk was so inspiring and we were just chomping at the bit to be able to speak with her. She told us more about her experience of being homeless for 5 days and how she was still going to work 3 out of those 5 days. Now, keep in mind that the participants who committed to the full 5 days, as she did, did not eat unless they were offered food, did not shower for 5 days and slept outside in the cold no matter the weather. Because it was on a busy street corner right in the middle of downtown, they did not get much sleep either.
She told us about how they found cardboard boxes to sleep on and their thrill at finding a one dozen egg carton. They would all take turns passing around the egg carton and place it under the cardboard box while they slept so it would be more comfortable. She said it didn’t really change much in terms of comfort, but just the thought of it was comforting. This may be the reality on any given night for a homeless person – picking up anything they can find that may make their living situation just a little better.
After talking to her and seeing her passion, she had us sold on participating somehow and in some way in next year’s 5 Days for the Homeless. Who knows, maybe I’ll do it for one night – we’ll see.
The take away from all of this is that we can all make a difference. Craig Kielburger said if you are unable to make a financial contribution or to give up your time, then contribute by being socially conscious consumers. There are many ways in which we can be socially conscious. We can try to stay clear of companies that endorse child labour, buy local, organic foods and organic clothing, etc. We all make purchases every day or almost every day and if we just invest a little bit of time in educating ourselves on the products we buy and making conscious choices of which companies and products we want to support, we can all make an impact on the world. If each and every one of us did this in our daily lives, imagine the impact that could have on our world!
In keeping with our corporate philosophy of supporting community initiatives that promote youth education, we decided to venture off slightly and sponsor an event that takes community engagement among youth to heart; the same way Vigilant Futures does.
This year, Youth Action Montreal is organizing an event that will draw thousands of college and university-aged students from across the country to our fair city with the hope of igniting a flame of social activism and community engagement. The theme: Living Your Legacy and Vigilant Futures is a proud sponsor.
Key-note speakers include several notable Canadians like David Suzuki, Michaëlle Jean, and Stephen Lewis, but also former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. The conference will also feature local community youth projects, including an organization dear to Vigilant Futures, Youth Fusion.
The day promises to be insightful and inspirational, with lots of calls to action I’m sure.
TOMS Shoes decided April 5th would be a good day for people around the world to commemorate the fact millions of children globally do not wear shoes on a daily basis simply because they don’t have any. Poverty in developing countries doesn’t allow for shoes when food and shelter are more important requirements. This leaves the very young exposed to infection, intestinal worms, cold weather disease, and countless other diseases most people in developed areas take for granted every day.
So Vigilant Futures lent their support in the way of barefoot feet hitting the cold and rainy pavement of downtown Montreal with local ‘One day without shoes’ event organizers. We all met on the corner of St. Catherine and University, donned in the proper attention-getting signage and attire, but minus socks and shoes. Our bare feet were the star attraction by far.
Needless to say, spring is a little late this year and the ground was not very cooperative yesterday. On the plus side, the pavement was so cold it numbed our feet pretty quickly so the nasty elements Montrealers leave behind on sidewalks were a distant thought.
Sure some of us walked around barefoot in the office all day but that was inadequate preparation for what we felt outside, what millions of kids around the world feel every day but don’t give it a second thought because they’ve never known anything else.
The day started off with the conclusion of the qualification rounds before lunch and the main event which began at 1:00. As the previous day, the team decided that with the difficulties we had with our arm (although functional and still capable of scoring at the highest level) and with the lack of a mini-bot deployment system, that we would stick to defensive play.
Some Vigilant colleagues arrived minutes before we hit the field in our final qualification round. Unfortunately, we had a problem with the battery and the robot was lacking power despite a full charge. This was disappointing for the lack of performance as well as it being what we we’re certain was going to be the only opportunity to show off our bot to the ’Vigilant brass’. But to our surprise and great excitement, we made it to the quarter finals. The team immediately got to work on tweaking what we could. By this point there wasn’t much we could do that hadn’t been done the two previous days, but we decided that as we weren’t using out bot to score we would disconnect all electronics for the lift and arm systems in an effort to maximize the potential of our battery.
Our bot was paired with two relatively strong bots which were happy to have us as a defender. Our robo-trio fought our way through the quarter undefeated and moved on to the semi-finals with great excitement.
In the semi-finals our trio was up against a team lead by bot 2051, undisputed best bot in our division run by a team with many years of experience and several regional championships under their belt. We focused on blocking this bot in particular, but their superior speed made this difficult at best and we lost the first round. Given this challenge ahead of us on the game field, we stripped as much of the lift system and arm and anything else that could be removed from our bot so as to lighten our load and give us a little extra speed. Unfortunately, 2051 was still a fair bit faster than we were and we weren’t able to match their speed and we were eliminated in round two.
This concluded Henri-Bourassa High School’s 2011 participation in the First Robotics competition. Still in good spirits for getting further than any other Quebec team, we packed up our robot, dismantled our pit and went out to celebrate.
It’s been another long day, albeit a little shorter than yesterday. It was still a good 14 hrs from the time I left this morning to the time I got back to the hotel. The qualifying rounds are largely done and will conclude tomorrow before lunch.
Update on our robot: Our hook at the end of our forklift-arm wasn’t functioning well, so we replaced it with something much simpler. Although we can still score on pegs of all levels, we decided that our robot is best served as a defender or as a support to our more aggressive teammates. This also means that chances of us continuing beyond the qualifying rounds are slim. But the team doesn’t seem to mind. It’s unfortunate that our driver only began to figure out the best way to play defensively after most of the points have already been tallied.
Over the course of the day, our robot performed well and didn’t suffer the mechanical problems so many of the other bots had. Although we worked on the minibot and deployment system in the limited time between matches, we weren’t able to complete it. This isn’t overly disappointing as there are only a very small number of robots which have managed it properly. Some teams kept their robots so simple that the only thing they can do is play defence (no autonomous mode, no ability to score, no minibot)!
During the official competition tomorrow, the two most impressive robots to watch 1114 and 2054. These two not only perform with remarkable speed and accuracy under user control, but their autonomous modes go well beyond that of all the other robots in that they are able to consistantly place the tube in their claws at the beginning of the match on the highest peg and then go in search of a second tube on the ground and virtually always place it on a different peg at the same height before the 15 second timer is up!
Day one is done and it had it’s ups and downs over the 11 hours we spent at the Mississauga Hershey Center. The status of the Henri-Bourassa robot: the arm is having difficulties due to a combination of design and programming issues. Autonomous mode isn’t going to happen. The minibot may or may not make it into the final robot, but we’ve passed inspection and are ready to begin tomorrow’s qualifying round in whatever shape we start in. We can do additional work through the qualifying round.
Walking around and looking at the other robots was a little frustrating as it was apparent that so many of them had many more man hours of build time available, greater funding for parts, larger resources and facilities…and in many cases a fair bit more experience. But that’s isn’t the case for all of them as some are having difficulties even functioning while others haven’t managed to pass inspection yet.
The atmosphere is pretty good as each team is willing to help out the others regardless of the status of their own robot.
After they kicked us out of the robot pits at 8 PM, we all went for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe.
Now, 15 hours after I left the hotel this morning, I’m back and am now ready for a good night of sleep! Tomorrow is another day.
Vigilant Futures has its select basketball aficionados on staff that meet every Friday on the bball court at the local university. The last Friday of each month, this select number of bball lovers face off against the Youth Fusion team from James Lyng High School and realistically, the younger players do get the best of us each time.
This Friday will be different. This Friday the Vigilantes will be spectators at LaSalle Community Comprehensive High School (LCCHS) when their bball team gets some court time with the kids from James Lyng High School. The reason: Vigilant is sponsoring 10 students from LCCHS to go to Ecuador in April…on the condition they play James Lyng for it.
The idea behind the friendly game was to get the entire school involved to raise funds for the 10 students. If the LCCHS basketball team wants to help their fellow classmates raise the money, then they’d be happy to help them out. And the kids from the James Lyng Youth Fusion program know all about helping the Montreal community. A perfect match. It’s part of the Vigilante way to pay it forward.
So now all of North America knows what us Montrealers have known for a while: Chuck Hughes is an awesome chef and Garde Manger is his hipster playground where his culinary ideas are born. He is Montreal’s worst-kept secret, but we’re happy to share him and his gastronomic prowess with the rest of the world so long as it is in TV form via Food Network Canada.
Yesterday night, Food Network Canada finally aired Chuck’s appearance on Iron Chef America. His selected opponent: none other than Bobby Flay. With Chuck’s ‘go big or go home’ attitude, you just knew he would choose the celebrity chef.
Anyone who’s watched Iron Chef America and dined in any one of Bobby’s many restaurants knows he is extremely tough to beat. No other Canadian chef beat Bobby before in the Iron Chef stadium. Not Susar Lee, not Lynn Crawford, not Michael Smith.
But Montreal’s own Chuck Hughes did it. His take on the secret ingredient – Canadian lobster – beat out Bobby’s dishes. His simple working-man dishes, as one judge called them, impressed the judges and ultimately led to Bobby Flay’s demise in battle Canadian lobster.
Montreal is totally proud! Check out what Chuck had to say before the battle began:
