I just want to share a FLL success story of the "Rabid Llama Lords" with everyone especially those rookie teams. A group of 9 students from CRES had received "Presidential Acknowledgement" when the White House learned about their accomplishment in FLL and robotics. They each received a letter from President Bush in June 2008 in recognition of their passion for robotics, FLL participation, and most importantly for their volunteered to teach robotics to other students at school. The story of "Take and Give" and "Giving Back to Our Community" told by a group of 6th grade students in their FLL '07 Climate Connection project won the heart and mind of the White House. Receiving "Presidential Acknowledgement" were the 7 students on the "Rabid Llama Lords" team along with 2 more 6th graders (Ben and Marc) who volunteered to lead the 2nd team "CRD2!" with younger students. With 9 kids, it would have been much easier to just have one team, but their decision to form a second team is all about our FLL Mission "...to inspire young people...". (Six of these students are now at Kilmer MS and what these kids did in 7th grade is another success story to be shared later...) The students that received "Presidential Acknowledgement" include: Kurt Tran John Valeiras Tim Zhong Will Gottwald Kabir Brar Akshith (Sonny) Doddi Nick Comlekoglu Ben Espey Marc Daalder I've attached a copy of the "Presidential Acknowledgement" letter that Kurt has received, teaching recognition from school, along with the project in PDF format (in the ZIP file) for reference and to inspire those rookie teams. It is not about winning or losing in the competition, if the kids have fun this FLL season, they're all winners! Remember the FLL Vision "To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology heroes." - Dean Kamen, Founder. While everyone is busy solving the Smart Move missions, don't forget about the important of the FLL Project. It was the "Rabid Llama Lords" FLL rookie year in '07. It was impossible for them to win the robot game that year, but they've won in a big way with recognition on their FLL Project... Cheers, T. (Curt) Tran Coach Team #3563, Rabid Llama Lords '07 Coach Team #324, Scitobor '08 P.S. You can send a zip file, however, by adding the extension ".jmu" to it. For example, fll.zip.jmu. Be sure to instruct recipients to rename it by deleting the ".jmu" extension after they've downloaded it. P.S.S. Sorry, the zip.jmu file is too large and will not send. Send me an e-mail if anyone want a copy of the project, or maybe Dr. Grove can post it on the VADCFLL news server. - Curt -----Original Message----- Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 8:40 AM Subject: [VADCFLL-L] FLL Team News If your FLL team catches the attention of your local newspaper or TV station this season, please send me a link to the story to add to the VADCFLL News & Events web page (http://www.vadcfll.org/news.html). Thanks, Ralph -- Ralph F. Grove, Jr., Ph.D., Professor James Madison University Department of Computer Science -- To UNSUBSCRIBE or CHANGE your settings, please visit https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-l.html and select "Join or leave the list". -- VADCFLL administrative announcements are sent via VADCFLL-ADMIN-L. Visit https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-admin-l.html to subscribe.