The final day of build season has come and gone. In the past it was known as Ship, but now it’s known as Bag and Tag. Instead of FedEx making rounds to collect thousands of robots around the world, now teams will be responsible for moving their robot to competition themselves.

Around 8:30 last night, the Hitchhikers finished up their changes on Benji, finalizing the build and tweaking the code. We managed to fit in some time to drive Benji around and shoot some baskets between all the work and modifications.

But all good things must end, and Benji was bagged and tagged before we all left for the night. The very last things were perfected and then Benji was locked away to await our trip to South Carolina in exactly one month.

Just because build season has ended doesn’t mean work stops for us. We still have some building and programming left to do. If we can fit it in, we also have to let our drivers get some training and work out their strategy. Oh no, the work during build season is more intense, but it certainly isn’t the only work we do.

All in all, our build season was a huge success. We managed to bag a working robot in Benji and not have to hold back too many pieces. Nothing catastrophic happened to Benji or any member of the team, which is something very important in FIRST.

Keep your eyes open over the next days and weeks for pictures and videos of Benji. Just because we can’t touch him doesn’t mean we can’t share him.

If you use Twitter, don’t forget to follow us @team2059. We’ll be keeping our feed up to date with our activities throughout the season, up to our competitions and beyond.

See you all in South Carolina!