Sam and I spent all our spare time and then some in January and February with his FIRST Robotics Team. The competition this year was Rebound Rumble. Sam was ecstatic: basketball and robotics together! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOXsdhZZSdM We spent the middle of March in Salt Lake City for Robotics competition. It was a great learning experience for the kids. They had a lot of fun. Lots of set backs and life lessons in dealing with teamwork, succes, challenges, and disappointments. The robot was working when we sealed it up in the bag, but not working when they tried to start it up at the competetion. So instead of practicing driving and adding the programming for driving and shooting, more than half the day was spent trying to figure out why it wouldn't turn on. Finally it was diagnosed that the digital sidecar (?) was fried...the brains were dead. Nampa team had a spare they loaned us and we made it to the final practice game of the day. 
Friday was competitions all day long. We were up as high as 10th place towards the end of the day and looking good for being in the finals. The end of the day also saw it looking like it may come down to a competition of whose robot still worked as, the more they ran, the more breakdowns occured. We bent steal and had to fix and replace pieces in between games. Day two saw us dropping steadily in the rankings as we could not get on the bridge and a lot of points were scored by being able to get on the bridge at the end of the game with an opponent. We dropped as low as 27th out of 43. Getting on the bridge was essential to place in the top 8 and qualify for finals because of the rubrik for "cooperitition." Because we could get over the barrier though and play defensively, several teams that were in the top rankings were interested in us for their alliance for finals. We were one of the first teams picked in the final alliance choosing that was not in the top 10. We were also the first alliance out in the quarter finals. Not bad for a first year young and inexperienced rookie team (with mostly rookie mentors too). Two of the robots we expected to win and go to nationals were out not long after us. It got pretty exciting and intense in the finals. Games were won and lost by simple things not planned for such as balls getting stuck under the bridge so the robot could not tip the bridge to get on. Robots tipped trying to get on, etc. Every game had some surprise and it got intense!
I have been so impressed with the FIRST Robotics programs. I've seen Sam grow so much and gain so many real-life skills through this experience. Even his teachers commented at the last parent teacher conferences that they had noticed he had really grown. It probably wasn't all robotics, but I think that it certainly facilitated it. Nothing like speaking their language to get them to have growing experiences they wouldn't attempt otherwise.
Here's our team in the pit with the robot.
I lost 3 lbs spending my days dancing to the music as we cheered on the robots. Rachel and Sarah came down to dance some too when they stopped in to visit. It was all over for the mascots when Rachel realized one could dance with them. She wanted them to dance with her non-stop.
We had a great time visiting family while there too, on both sides. We had pizza with my brother Josh on the way down and stayed with Richard's family and all his siblings came to visit. Richard got to spend time with his brother, Russ, at the RC track in Magna with the boy cousins. (except Sam - who was at Robotics)
Matthew and AJ finished the Book of Mormon while we were there so they could go to Leatherby's Ice Creamery for ice cream. They have such good ice cream that even their "Playdough" ice cream is yummy. Cold Stone's got nothing on them as far as flavor!
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