Since it was late September, we weren’t expecting any snow.  It wasn’t even cold for that matter.  We all met up on campus in the morning and off we went.  From there, it was about a 2.5 hour drive.  I would have stopped in Squamish to go to Tim Horton’s if I had known to take that exit.  We arrived at the UBC Whistler Lodge at around 11.  The lodge had a pool table and an arcade machine!  They didn’t have Tetris on the arcade machine though.  If they did, that would have been super awesome.

The lobby also featured nice First Nations artwork over top of the fireplace.

We spent about an hour and a bit with presentations from each of the sub teams (mechanical, electrical, and software) so everyone could get a little bit of an orientation about what everyone else was working on on the team.  This was helpful in that each sub team would not be working alone on their components anymore.  This promoted the very important idea of multi-disciplinary teamwork.

After the exploring, we decided to walk around to check out the scenery.

We spent the rest of the day socializing with one another and it helped us all get to know each other a little better.  It’s definitely better to know one’s teammates better in order to help team chemistry.  It definitely helped the team get a lot closer.

People took part in a variety of activities: Big 2, drunken poker, Apples to Apples, just chatting, among other things.  Pretty sure everyone had a good time.

We stayed for a day and a night at the lodge.  Before we left, we took a nice stroll in the Whistler Village. It was nice since there was not a lot of people during the off-season.

On the drive back, we stopped at some viewpoints to appreciate the scenery.

Some of the mountains still even had snow on them!

Once we left Whistler, the drive back became a lot more boring. I guess I was just in a hurry to head home then. I figured that was a long enough break (even though I only had less than a month of school), so I probably should take care of my actual priorities again…

More photos here