Something to Remember

On December 5th 2008, our FIRST LEGO League (FLL) team won our state’s competition. Unfortunately North Carolina didn’t qualify for the automatic bid to the World Festival in Atlanta, where FLL teams from all around the world compete. We also didn’t get chosen for the Ambassador’s Award, which is another way teams get chosen to compete in the World Festival. Initially we were disappointed. However we did receive an automatic bid to the first ever FLL United States Open Championship in Dayton, Ohio on May 7th to 9th and we’re very excited about competing there.

In the three days we are there, we will compete in the same events that we did in the state competition. In the research presentation, we will do a skit about water conservation in Cary NC, and Brisbane AU, show off our Lego H2O house, and talk about our other numerous research topics like our website, outreach and stop motion movie. In the technical interview we will explain to the judges how we cleverly came up with our robot design, run our robot, and describe our programs. In the teamwork interview, which is the last interview on Friday, a judge will ask us a few questions about how we work together as a team and then he/she will we give us a challenge to complete. Finally, in the robot missions on Saturday, we will run our robot on the table in an attempt to get a 400 point score in under two and a half minutes. We’ll have three tries. The competition culminates with the Award Ceremony.

In the competition we will do lots of other things besides compete. The pit pod is where our team and five other teams will rest and store our equipment. We will dress for the event by putting on our vivid orange and blue Microbots shirts and blue Microbots hats. Some of us will daringly sport Mohawks and dye our hair! Some teams are planning a scavenger hunt that we can do while we are resting in our pit pod. We will hand out and trade team buttons. Excitedly, we will tour the National Museum of the United States Air Force, which is open after hours for just FLL teams. We will also have a pizza party.

It will be something to remember!!!