Day 2: Tron-tastic spirit results!

Here we are at the end of Day 2, and what a fantastic day it was! We all got up bright and early at 6 a.m. to get on the busses that took us to Nakiska Mountain Resort and Banff. Those of us that chose to ski or snowboard were dropped off at Nakiska for a full day of shredding corduroy.

At the ski hill, the spirit judges presented us with the first challenge of the competition: form a group of three with two people from other schools, track down five members of the host committee and collect unique stamps from each.

There were a total of nine winners on three teams and a Tronbogganer was on
each of the winning teams! That should score us some serious spirit points.

A few happy Tronboggan folk got together and built a snowman to wave at the
chairlift passing overhead.

In Banff, all participants were split up into teams from different schools and participated in various challenges. These challenges included curling and a scavenger hunt. All in all it was an action-packed day for all participants. I think we can all agree that the day was a success an many new friendships were formed.

It’s always a treat to see familiar faces from previous years of GNCTR and
today was a great opportunity to catch up with old acquaintances.

Tonight it’s a pizza supper and then off to Ranchman’s for a Cowboys and Aliens party. Then Saturday it’s up at the crack of dawn again to head to the U of C campus for the Technical Exposition. Hopefully we’ve all got enough stamina to make it through.

We’ve been asked to tweet the spirit judges throughout the competition, check out #GNCTR2012 to see what’s going on.

--Andrea Badger

The U of A’s GNCTR 2012 Tronboggan team is ready to go!

We’ve been working really hard since September and now the competition week has arrived.

The competition is multi-faceted and our diverse team has been busily putting the finishing touches on all competition elements. The tech display, depicting a Tron-esque light cycle is painted, wired with hundreds of LED bulbs and lit up.

The skit for opening ceremonies, a dance featuring some of U of A’s finest dancing engineers, has been rehearsed. We’ve come up with some great cheers and are working on memorizing them so that they can be called out at all hours of the day throughout competition.

The tech report describing all the effort, technical and otherwise that the team has put into the competition has been submitted and, barring no serious grammatical errors, should pass with flying colours.

The costumes, which are morph suits hand painted with glow-in-the-dark paint and decorated with strings of LEDs are ready to glow. Each team member has sworn to never take their costume off and use their 4 Frisbee weapons wisely.

The concrete skis for our sled were poured in December so they have cured long past their 28-day maximum strength. The concrete was designed to be strong under dynamic loading – perfect for sledding! We’ve even got a spare set of skis in case of emergency on race day.

The superstructure of our sled is made of aluminum and has passed FEA requirements so we know we’ll be safe under our strong roll cage. We’ve completed three test runs with our sled and it’s fast, the steering works and the brake promises to deliver. All 30 members of the competing team and nine members of the non-competing team are looking forward to an exciting, fun-filled competition.

--Andrea Badger