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I agree that the robot does get the most visibility at the tournament, however, I will say that it is definitely not all about the robot. We were a first year team with very young 9 year olds, and we had an amazing experience at our regional tournament this past weekend. (Thank you so much for everything by the way!!) Our kids did very well. They won the robot design award for their age division, and tied for the best robot performance award. They were truly shocked and amazed and so excited to win two awards! However, although we did really well on the robot, apparently we did not do as well in the other two categories, because we did not get advanced to state, and we weren't even the alternate. (I am definitely not complaining! They were just excited to do as well as they did! And congratulations to the teams who are going on to state, we are going to be there to witness all the excitement!) I am just saying this as an example of, it's not all about the robot, and you can do really well on the robot, but not be advanced. It really is about all 4 parts. We are a first team year though, and we'll know more next year.

I also feel that FLL did a good job of emphasizing this from the start. I mean, everything I have gotten or read has said over and over again, how the competition is evenly divided between the four components, and each is worth 25% (robot design, robot performance, teamwork, and research project).

I do feel though, that we needed some more information on how to better prepare for the other parts. The teamwork, for example, was 25% of our score, but we didn't really know what to expect. I won't go into details, since some haven't had their tournament yet, but I do feel like it was a short 5 minutes, and it is hard for the judges to determine how they worked together as a team over the eight weeks in those 5 minutes.

Anyway, just sharing that it really is about the total score on all four parts, and I do think it is good that this is emphasized, because it gives kids a chance to see that there are many aspects and levels of working in science and technology. There is no one narrow path, but many. It takes all kind of jobs, all kinds of skills, and all kinds of people in those fields.

Thank you again for the amazing experience we had at the JMU tournament, and a super big congratulations to all the teams advancing to the state competition. I was so impressed at the level of enthusiasm by teams for all the other teams. Everyone was so supportive and cheering on other teams. It was definitely not an atmosphere of "hey, we're the best" or "hey we're gonna win and you're not", like you find at other team events. It was a great group of awesome kids!