There have been some great responses to George's note about the apparent robo-centric emphasis. I agree that this is more illusion than fact, and applaud the great work done by the project and teamwork judges and by the tournament officials who have the hard job of selecting among many deserving teams to win awards and advance to State. I do think this conversation illustrates a downside of having the project get such limited visibility at the tournament. The project presentation is done behind closed doors, with only coaches and a camera to witness. Unless a team brings a display of some sort to the tournament, and unless other teams find the time to look at said display, there's little opportunity to share results amidst all the excited rushing about. We've been to two regional tournaments and came away with scant insight into what any other teams had done for their projects, and no sense that anyone other than two judges learned what our team had done. Although early in the season the kids are reluctant to spend time on the research instead of the robot, by the time they create their presentation they're jazzed about it, so it's a bit of a shame not to have that enthusiasm compete at least a bit with the roar of the robots. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I'll maintain that it's worthwhile to search for more ways to celebrate the projects, for example by adding a celebratory element to the closing ceremony above and beyond presenting awards. Even a one--minute synopsis of each winning project, delivered by the announcer or a team member, might be nice. It's been noted that everyone is tired at the end of the day, and understandably loath to add more time to the closing ceremony. But if there are tournaments that add more project-focused material to the closing, I'd be curious to learn what was done and how it went over. Cheers, Mike ______________________________________________________________ To UNSUBSCRIBE or CHANGE YOUR SETTINGS, please visit https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-l.html and select "Join or leave the list". If you want to join the VADCFLL-ADMIN-L mailing list - to which FLL administrative announcements will be distributed - visit https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-admin-l.html and select "Join or leave the list".