Hello VA/DC FLL this is Ashburn Robotics NX-Treme. After coming back from the 2011 WorldFest in St. Louis we would like to thank everyone who supported us along the way, from the volunteers, who ran both the regional and state tournaments, to our sponsors and every team who took part in the body Forward challenge. The Virginia/ D.C. state tournament is one of the largest FLL tournaments in the world and we were honored to be able to represent our state to the world. One of the most amazing things about attending WordlFest was being able to meet all the other teams from different countries. Of the 82 teams present more than half were from other countries. To “break the ice”, every team was paired up with another team to complete a mission. Our Alliance partners were the Bintulu Hawks, a team from Malaysia. Together we were able to explore the FTC and FRC pits and get to know each other. In fact this activity worked so well that we stayed in contact even after the tournament ended. Some of the other teams we talked with were Bacon, from Australia, NXT Generation, from Holland, Universal Serial Bus from Japan, Miracle Generation, from South Korea, and The Chilean Way, from Chile. The spirit and gracious professionalism displayed in the tournament was amazing and made the experience much more fun. The city of St. Louis itself was awesome. Before the competition started we were able to explore the city a little and saw the gateway arch and the City Museum. You can visit our website at ashburnrobotics.com and look under photos to see what they look like. The arch, designed by Eero Saaranen who also designed the Dulles airport, was incredible. It is the largest freestanding arch in the world and the view from the top was incredible. To get to the top you ride inside small 5 person capsules. The people you sit with are randomly assigned based on the number of people already in a car so you get to meet new people. In front of the arch was the Mississippi River which, due to flooding, had overflowed its banks and covered the road near it, this meant that you could wade in a couple of feet into the road. The other really cool place we visited was the City Museum, an entire museum built with things found within St. Louis that no one wanted and dedicated almost entirely to climbing structures. The museum featured man-made caves, giant jungle gyms, and all sorts of city statues. If you ever find yourself in St Louis this is a must see destination. Our team could have spent the whole day exploring all the nooks and crannies and still not seen everything. The tournament itself went very well. For the most part, everything went smoothly and we were able get two decent scores on our robot runs and had a lot of fun collecting buttons and swops from FLL, FTC & FRC teams. While our robot was capable of scoring 400 points, predicable it only likes to do so on our home table. Stage fright I guess. During our two practice runs we managed to get 375 on each which put us solidly in fifth place, but unfortunately the next day in were not so lucky. During our scored runs we were only able to get a high of 370, which placed us, 14th overall. Not to bad considering these were all great teams. There were several teams, which scored perfect 400’s, and two, which scored back-to-back 400’s. The Hammerheads from FL just edged out an all girls team, the LOL Comets, from CA to take the robot performance award. Our team was awarded the 1st place for robot mechanical design. We were very surprised and honored to be recognized as one of the top teams in the world. All the teams we saw and meet were truly amazing. As we went to the stage to receive the trophy it was so nice to see many familiar faces from Virginia FLL greeting and cheering for our team. We wanted to say a special thank you to Nick, Steve, Marty, Bill, Susan, & Karen and the many others who traveled to St Louis as well as those who watched the live webcast and cheered us on. We are working on putting together a YouTube video in the next few weeks and hope to upload it soon. In the mean time feel free to visit our website at ashburnrobotics.com to learn more about the team, out project, our robot, programs and the World Festival. Good Luck to team in the Food Factor challenge!!!! Ashburn Robotics NX-Treme team 3691 Lindsey, Michael, Alex, Kyle, Jacob, Katherine, Austin, Kaustubh, & Nathan -- 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.