So close, yet so far...
The 2013 FLL Regional Championships took place at the South Torrance High School. Teams #2375 and #2379 attended the same championship event. Our championship resulted in a first place Core Values Award in Gracious Professionalism and an Ambassador Team Award. Our team started this stressful, nerve-wrecking day early in the morning with the support of Starbucks and hot chocolate. The moment we arrived, we were constantly being judged by “secret judges” who are actually the volunteers. We all felt confident in our Project judging, and was very satisfied with how our Presentation went. This was the first event in which we were allowed to view the projects of other teams. The Robot Game was a little disappointing as our robot has a reputation of malfunctioning at competitions and important events. After Robot Run 2 our team went into “practice-board-hogging mode" with most of our team surrounding the board for over half an hour. This is when verbal disputes broke out with tense members scolding and feeling frustrated at each other. After a while, we realized hoe immature we were acting and calmed down. We actually thought we had been judged during this short period of time and was very surprised when we had been awarded first for Gracious Professionalism. Sadly if our robot had scored 7 points more, our team would've had the opportunity to compete and continue our program at Nationals. This competition and experience had effected and influenced us positively in many different ways. We are so lucky to be able to continue and share this FLL experience as an Ambassador Team.