On Saturday, December 11, 2010,Team 1739 “Hawaiian Kids” participated in the Hawai’i FLL Championship Competition at the Neal Blaisdell Arena. There were a total of 56 teams from Oahu and other islands. To begin our day, we entered into our first judging room and presented our skit about breast cancer to 3 judges; we also were timed and given only 5 minutes to complete the presentation.

Next, we entered another judging room to talk about our robot design and how we showed teamwork and gracious professionalism while being in FLL. Such as working together after school as a team, presenting our research project to our community, and helping out the community by volunteering at the Lokoea Fishpond in Haleiwa.

Finally, the robot matches began, we had 3 rounds to complete 9 missions and were given a maximum of 2 ½ minutes. The first round results put us in 31st place. The second round results, we made a comeback and moved to 13th place. The 3rd and final round left us tied for 13th and the higher of the scores of the teams tied moved us to a final 14th place. We were very happy placing 14th out of 56.

Before the day ended there was an award ceremony. We waited for the results. There were 21 awards to be given out. The first award that they were giving out was the Rising Star Award. This Award was given to the team that the judges notice and believe will soon be among the best and the brightest. As they called the numbers 1 7 3 9, we all smiled and were filled with joy, we cheered and clapped and waited for Brendan to go up and get the award. We were proud of each other and couldn’t believe it. All in all, our team felt that it was a great accomplishment for a rookie team.