We received this good news from the parents of one of our students this week:
Dr. Cates,
We wanted you to know that Team iBrick, our LEGO Robotics team (consisting of John, Josh and Caleb Pottebaum, and Eli, Sam and Jesse Parham), won the Finals of the State First LEGO League competition December 5, and advanced to the International competition. The International competition is in St. Louis (we went to Internationals in Taiwan last year where we won Best Research) on April 27, 2011 at the Edward Jones Dome. They anticipate over 40,000 people to participate/attend. We are prepared to take our research to another level for the competition.
The best part of the long day, was something that happened in the last hour of competition. Part of the LEGO Robotics project is research and the other part is robotic programing. Each team gets three chances to accumulate the most points they can on the robot mission field. Teams keep one score out of three attempts. Due to unequal pairings of teams, iBrick got to run the robot an extra time, but was not allowed to get the points for the 4th time. Rather than making a showy exhibition, iBrick gave up some of their points to a rookie team, by foregoing a mission. The judges were amazed at the notion that kids could put the needs of others ahead of their own.
We were satisfied with the day knowing the boys made an impression with the judges far more lasting than winning a trophy. To top it off, they won the Champion’s Award. It was the second year we have won our division of the Missouri State Finals and advanced to the International competition. I do not know if that has ever been done before.
We thought you would be excited to know.
Thanks so much,
Michelle Pottebaum
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