Photo by The Joneses Gisela and Ralph served as judges at a robotics competition in the Tampa Bay area. Here, Gisela goes a score sheet. SLIDE SHOW: Judging the competition — — — View Larger Map
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His team (Darth Panthers from Lomax Elementary Magnet School), under the direction of my son Rich, hosted a tournament Jan. 12. It was the first competition held in the Tampa Bay area.

This robotics competition is a program put on by LEGO International Technology and each year they issue an annual theme for kids (boys and girls) who are interested in science and technology. The robots are built from LEGO MINDSTREAM technologies and materials – just about anything can be built with them.

The kids form teams to compete first on local levels before — hopefully — moving on to the State Championship that will be held in Melbourne, Fla., this year. An international competition is planned for this spring in Georgia.

This year’s theme is “Power Puzzle Quest” and is asking the kids how energy consumption and production can affect our planet. The research project required the kids to audit a building (of their choice), evaluate the energy use, identify problems and find solutions to the problems.

The competition is judged in five different categories: The research and documentation of the findings; Presentation of their research project; Robot design; Performance of the robot; and Teamwork. Awards are given for each category and for overall points.

Since this competition was put on by Nick’s team they were not competing. However, all family members were put to work, including Ralph and I. We were judges — it was very exciting and we were both amazed at the work these kids put into their projects.

Ralph was a judge at the tables where the kids direct their computerized robot to perform certain functions. I was a judge for the presentations and listened to how the kids performed their audit, how they identified problems and suggestions they made to solve these problems.

There were 22 teams competing and the three top winners are eligible to attend the State Competition. The excitement at the tournament was no less than at any other school sporting event. Parents and sibling were there to cheer on the teams. All teams have names and the team member really get into the spirit often by dressing in costumes. For example, one team is called R2D2 Fire Droids and they were dressed in Jedi outfits, another team wore pink t-shirts and had pink hair.

It was a great day for Ralph and I. We truly love being able to participate in one of our grandchildren’s activities. The highlight for me was when a video was shown on the big screen and a soldier in Iraq talked to the kids about teamwork. Teamwork is more important than the state of the art equipment or expert skills and knowledge — it is the most important aspect in our involvement in Iraq.

The soldier was my youngest son Gregory and it was taped in Iraq where he was at that time (he is back home now). Needless to say I started crying. All in all it was an exciting day and brought back memories when I was cheering on my sons in some of he events they participated in.

We started working at Disney World last week and I’ll talk about that in my next entry.