added edits to Gator Tank article

src/content/2024-10-08-gator-tank-competition.md

@@ -1,21 +1,26 @@
 ---
 slug: "/2024-gator-tank"
-date: "2024-10-08"
-title: "OSC Competes In and Wins 2024 Gator Tank"
-author: ["Daniel Wildsmith, Michail Zeipekki"]
+date: "2024-10-09"
+title: "OSC Wins $500 at UF Gator Tank 2024"
+author: ["Daniel Wildsmith", "Michail Zeipekki"]
 featuredImage: ../images/blog/2024-10-08-gator-tank-competition.webp
-subtitle: Securing $5,500 in funding from prize pool and new corporate sponsors
+subtitle: Securing $500 in funding from the UF Gator Tank prize pool
 ---
-This Fall semester, the University of Floria (UF) College of Engineering hosted its first ever *Gator Tank* competition.
-The event provided the opportunity for a select group of engineering student organizations to showcase their mission and accomplishments to a panel of industry leaders and prominent faculty members, with the chance to win a portion of a $3,000 prize pool.
-Out of the 88 engineering clubs at UF, the Open Source Club (OSC) was one of only three selected to participate. We are very grateful to Dr. Pamela Dickrell, the Associate Dean of Student Affairs, for inviting us!
+This Fall semester, the University of Floria (UF) College of Engineering hosted its first ever *Gator Tank* competition. The event provided the opportunity for a select group of engineering student organizations to showcase their mission and accomplishments to a panel of industry leaders and prominent faculty members, with the chance to win a portion of a $3,000 prize pool.
 
-Jake Malegni, Vice President of OSC, reflects on the experience:
-> "Our president, a tech lead from the Bytes of Love team, and I represented the organization and successfully won $500 for our presentation. Outside of the prize money, we also secured additional funds and made connections with industry leaders such as Vobile and prominent faculty members at UF."
+Initial competition was extremely fierce, with over 88 engineering clubs at UF that could potentially participate in the challenge. Many clubs had concentrated their efforts on a single flagship project, whereas OSC had dispersed its attention throughout multiple [open source projects](/projects). Panic spread through the executive board, with many executives fearing that our projects would not meet the competition's expectations. The tech leads feared that the decision to compete was being prolonged unnecessarily, and compelled President [Anton Salvador](https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoncsalvador/) not to hesitate to expose them to the difficulty and toil of the challenge. They said they were ready, able, and bold enough to advance and secure a victory for OSC. President Salvador yielded to this clamorous display of their zeal; and although he was anxious about exposing the club to such powerful competitors, he felt that he must make the experiment and attempt to partake in the competition.
 
-This achievement is a testament to how far the club has come in the past few years.
-What started as a small group of passionate students has now evolved into a well-recognized organization on campus, receiving support from both the College of Engineering and industry partners.
-We look forward to building on this momentum as we continue to develop meaningful open-source software and foster a community of student developers at UF.
+The executive council convened, and it was decided that [Bytes of Love](/projects/bytes-of-love-website/) and [Echologator](/projects/echologator/) would represent the club in the competition (the two projects being among the most mature in OSC's portfolio). Accordingly, the project tech leads undertook extreme measures in polishing their codebases and preparing their respective presentations. Such was the eagerness of members that, although midterms were approaching and many academic deadlines had to be met, it was generally understood that speed was of the utmost importance and members "locked in" to prepare for the competition. As the decision deadline closed in, the courage of OSC members left nothing to be desired, and OSC secured its candidacy for the competition, being among only three clubs selected to participate.
+
+The competition itself proceeded flawlessly, as the principles employed by other clubs had not adequately accustomed their members to working on large-scale, pre-professional programming projects. Ultimately, OSC had no difficulty in securing $500 of the $3000 prize pool. The OSC board is extremely grateful of Dr. Pamela Dickrell, the Associate Dean of Student Affairs, for her invitation and continued support of the club.
+
+[Jake Malegni](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jwmalegni/), Vice President of OSC, reflects on the experience:
+> "Our president, several tech leads from Open Source Club, and I represented the organization and successfully won $500 for our presentation. Outside of the prize money, we also secured additional funds and made connections with industry leaders such as Vobile and prominent faculty members at UF."
+
+This achievement is a testament to how far the club has come in the past few years. Following the COVID pandemic, OSC had effectively 0 active members, but has since grown to over 300. What started as a small group of passionate students has now evolved into a well-recognized organization on campus, receiving support from both the College of Engineering and industry partners.
+
+Following the competition, it was decided that the credit for OSC's success ought to rest with its members, which had so eagerly offered their services to the club in preparation for the competition. As such, a large portion of the prize money has since been allocated to OSC's [autonomous drone project](/projects/drone/), securing critical supplies such as rotors, microcontrollers, and wireless handheld controllers. Participation in OSC projects is open to all UF students, and we encourage everyone to join us during our [Fall 2024 Casual Coding meetings](/blog/2024-fall-casual-coding/) to get involved.  We look forward to building on this momentum as we continue to develop meaningful open-source software and foster a community of student developers at UF.
 
-It’s great to be a Gator! 🐊
 There has never been a better time to get involved with the Open Source Club. Connect with us on [Discord](https://discord.gg/Gsxej6u) and join the open-source movement!
+
+It’s great to be a Gator! 🐊