Brandy,

There was a food packaging sponsor that year but they didn’t provide any judges or have any influence on the judging – I promise.  We recruit judges from the state but most come from the Harrisonburg area (not from our sponsors).

My guess is that the folks judging had a hard time connecting the bats to the food supply (given the more specific guidance in the research project from that year).

FIRST has gone back and forth on the specificity of guidance on the research project – which makes it challenging for out-of-the-box teams and solutions.  There was some indication that they were moving back towards a more liberal interpretation of the project this year but I have no advance knowledge of the actual parameters before they are published.

Nick

From: First Lego League in Virginia and DC [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of B Bergenstock
Sent: Saturday, July 11, 2015 9:12 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VADCFLL-L] Thoughts on Trash Trek project

Is it possible to find out who is sponsoring the State tournament?  I don't want to sound cynical, but the year my team did "Food factor" the state tournament was sponsored by a food packaging company, and only teams whose research project related to packaging made it to the awards and thus moved on Our team did a food factor safety form the farm aspect- the kids worked on curing white nose fungus in bats, which are animals that eat 300 tons of insects and keep 53 billion dollars worth of pesticides off our food, making it safer. The trail from safe farming practices to safe food was a bridge too far for the judges at state.  My kids were disappointed by the questions of the judges. It was the ten year who at our team round up suggested we figure out who was a sponsor if we wanted to move on at state :)

On Sat, Jul 11, 2015 at 8:46 PM, Amy [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Hello...I'm just curious if there's any of the teams that have been through numerous challenges might have some thought on this year's challenge. The challenge teasers say - "From collection, to sorting, to smart production and reuse, there is more to your trash than meets the eye".

This seems to preclude teams for making things that would educate people to stop using certain products - water bottles, single-use bags, balloons, etc. For example, if a team wanted to design an app that taught kids about how a certain project is affecting the environment or encouraging them to make better choices, etc, this doesn't seem like it would fit into the above teaser. But this seems to be one of the most important ways we reduce some forms of trash, through education.

So I was just wondering what people thought? I know the challenge doesn't come out for another month and a half and it's all just guessing and no one really knows, but our team has been working on their research during the summer and really want to do something educational, but I hate to let them get too far in that direction if it's going to be something not within the realm of the challenge.   They're really only doing research right now...not working on their solution...but they keep trying to decide on one solution that they really like.  So I was just wondering.  I would really appreciate any thoughts!

Thanks much!
Amy Nichols
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