I went to BLOXCon NY and it was a blast! The ROBLOX Staff are very nice! Here’s a recap of what happened:

First, when I walked in, I saw a booth with ROBLOX Staff outside the booth. I got the goodie bag with all #10 cards. There are 10 different ROBLOX trading cards, and each person gets 10 of the same card. You trade with other users to get the rest of them.

 

I saw John Shedletsky at the very front of the museum. He is very nice and funny. He made me laugh quite a few times throughout the event, which I enjoyed a lot. I also traded a lot in this area.

 

As I walked to one of the main locations in the museum of the BLOXCon, I saw the merchandise counter. I immediately purchased a hoodie and a shirt for over $40 so I got the free virtual package. I am very happy with the clothing. It’s very cool!

Then, I saw Brandon LaRouche selling his books. I bought my copies with me to get signed, but at the moment there was a pretty big line so I decided to go to a different section first.

 

Then I saw the Wheel of Doom, in which you spin a wheel and get something depending on what you spun. You can only do this once, but you get the ROBLOX Trading Card #2 for spinning as an extra reward. I spun twice, because my dad let me go again for his spin, and got another poster and a random card. There was another option to get 3 random cards, which I really wanted, since I wanted to get all 10 cards, but oh well.

Then my sister spun, and she got a random card too. We were all out of spins after that.

Then, we went upstairs to the Hackathon and R&D (Research and Development). The R&D was very cool, as I got to see new vehicle physics before anyone else for the first time! The new physics made wheels on cars and trucks turn when you turn the car left or right, just like a normal vehicle that has wheels! There was also a challenge, the map that had the new vehicle physics had a truck with cargo in the back. This truck had the new physics. There was also a path that you had to drive around to get to the finish line, and if you do, you win a prize (Im still not sure what the prize is, but my guess is that it is a virtual item). I tried to win, and kept failing. The path was very bumpy, making this challenge a lot harder than it sounds. I kept failing at this jump thingy where you have to jump over a hole that has ramps around it. Twice I made it over the hole, but I was going so fast afterwards that the truck fell, and I had to start over.

 

Also, at the R&D lab, I noticed that the computers on display had ROBLOX mouse pads. I asked one of the ROBLOX Staff if they had the mousepads for sale, and he said he wasn’t sure. I checked the merchandise counter, and they didn’t have them. Not yet at least…

I went back and continued with the R&D. I gave up trying to win the prize with the truck path challenge, it was just too hard for me. I still wonder what the prize is as I write this.

I saw some of the Hackathon challenges, one was to create a pizza, with bonus points for having toppings!

Then we took a break and had lunch outside on the boat. The plan was to go to the hackathon at noon, but there wasn’t any hackathon. There was a crowd of people talking in the hackathon area, and we met some ROBLOX admins there, including stickmasterluke. He signed my trading card #4 and one of my posters, and I told him I was a big fan of his ROBLOX game “The Underground War”. He is very nice.

 

Then, we went to the presentation at 1:30. It was great. The Staff showed a lot of cool stuff. The Staff are working on a ton of stuff, I am surprised at how much they do. The Staff had an interview with Seronak, the creator of Catalog Heaven, and I learned that he is working as an intern on bringing back sound uploading! That is totally sweet!

 

During the Q&A, I asked a question about the Camera object. I asked why it is that when the camera is at an exact 90 degree angle looking straight down on your character, that it causes the character to not be able to move. David Baszucki told me that it was a glitch and I should talk with the Staff later about it, but I never got the chance too with all the other stuff going on!

Then, I checked the merchandise counter, and the staff had mousepads for sale (staff members run the merchandise counter)! Me and my dad decided to stock up on them, since it would be cool to have them for my ROBLOX summer camp! We also got ROBLOX pins as well, which is also neat.

Then, we went back and I entered the Hackathon. Two minutes before the Hackathon started, I was having ROBLOX Studio troubles, and it showed an error when I tried to launch Studio on the desktop icon, and the taskbar icon. I tried the Start button, and thankfully that worked just as a Staff member was announcing the first challenge.

I actually did pretty well at the Hackathon, not sure if I will win though. I did a mix of building and scripting challenges. There were several challenges that I did that the Staff liked. One was a building challenge to create a still action scene, and you can include a cow for extra points. I made the explosion object with the cow flying (of course the cow wasn’t really flying, the physics were supposed to be still for this one). Also, there was a challenge to build an animal of at least 20 parts, and I took a shot at creating a Hamster!

 

I also took a shot at the challenge of spelling out your ROBLOX username out of bricks. Since my user (cardgamechampion) is super long, I had trouble with this, but managed to submit it literally seconds before the end of the challenge.

More challenges I completed are:

Scripting:

Create a part that changes from invisible to visible in the course of 2 seconds.

Create a GUI that when clicked, allows your character to jump

Make a script that gradually puts all wooden parts in the place on fire, one wooden part at a time.

Building:

Create a Marble Path with 2 turns.

Create an animal with 20 parts

Create an action scene

Spell your username out in parts.

Challenges that I failed at/ didn’t try lol:

Create a script that allows you to go through a CanCollided brick (No changing the Player’s parts to non-CanCollidable allowed!) – This one I asked how to do this afterwards, and one of the members of the staff said they didn’t know themselves, and that this was a very hard one.

Create the U.S.S. Intrepid – This was the last building challenge. The U.S.S. Intrepid is the ship where BLOXCon NY was located. I let my sister try to do this, but only had 10 minutes to do so. She actually got surprisingly close. She was about half way done when it ended. I am proud of her for getting that far, as I am way better at ROBLOX Studio than she is.

Create a clock that shows the correct time with the tick() function – I know that the tick() function prints the number of seconds since January something 1970 and that that date means something, but it involves advanced math that I didn’t know how to do yet. I read about it in the ROBLOX Wiki somewhere, hence why I know this much about it lol.

There are a lot that I have forgotten, I will add more as I remember them.

At the Hackathon, I met some very nice ROBLOXians next to me. I ended up helping them with some of the challenges, which felt pretty good.

I also slowly traded cards throughout the event, and I had all cards except for #7, which is the Apocalypse Rising one, which I would guess people would want to keep. I kept asking people if they had #7, and all said no. Oh well.

 

At the end of the hackathon, I stayed a little longer to talk with the CEO and co-founder of ROBLOX, David Baszucki. He is also very nice, and is catering towards the parents who had to drive a ton to get there.

 

As I was leaving, I saw John Shedletsky again. I asked him if he had #7 for my last shot at getting all of them, and he had a ton of them! He gave me one for free, finishing my ROBLOX trading card set! I thanked him for this. Me, my dad, my sister, some other ROBLOXians, and John walked together out of the museum. John made jokes along the way.

 

As I was leaving, I felt like I was leaving the best place on earth. I will always remember going to BLOXCon NY. The ROBLOX Staff were very friendly, thus making the event very memorable. They seem to love their work, which is great. I had a great time at BLOXCon NY. Don’t feel as though you got left out though, you can join the virtual BLOXCon in 2 weeks!