Thursday began with a practice in a conference room. We hadn't finished our second run and so we worked on it quite a bit. In the afternoon, we went to the Air Force Museum and saw the big airplanes. After a movie at the Imax, we went back to work practicing our runs. We were trying to get a 400!
On Friday, we were all tired from staying up way too late but we had to do our interviews. The research interview is our best so it was great that it was first. We thought that we did quite well and it gave us a lot of energy for the next one, the technical interview. We were happy with that one too. Finally, we had the teamwork interview and it was great too! Back to work on our runs.
On Friday night, we met with our alliance partners. We were all so tired and so we pretty much went to bed and let Rebekah organize the alliance runs. She worked with our two younger partners and really showed how we work. Clark and Benjamin went up to the rooms and got Mohawks to show their team spirit! We had to be our best for the runs on Saturday.
Our first run was 105 and it was great! We were getting 40s in practice so maybe we just set a low bar. The judges were very precise about the scoring rules so points were tougher to get. More work and the next run was 210. What an improvement! Our third run was a disappointing 150. It was ok though, we never gave up! Patrick gave it everything that he had to get Joe (our robot) back on track.
Finally, it was time for the awards. All the research awards were given out and we didn't win one. They were down to two categories, teamwork and overall.
"This home school team might not be large in numbers, but their team strength is not micro. Their vacuum cleaner team activity even passed dust particles from member to member. Team work demonstrated fluid movements with high energy with little effort."
We knew when they talked about our vaccuum cleaner (this was our team project) that we had gotten first place in the teamwork category! It was great! What a terrific end to the season!
It was a great tournament! We felt that it was our responsibility to represent our state the best that we could through gracious professionalism. We also wanted to get a 400. We did get our 400, not on the table, but in the teamwork. There isn't a better 400 than that!
The tournament was so well run and organized! Thank you Kathy Levine and Joe Meno! Thank you to our alliance partners! Thanks to all of the teams and staff that made this so memorable!
