Home ed team wins national robotics championship!

[Saracen]

A team of HE teens has won the UK/Ireland First Lego League robotics championships, and have now set their sights on the world championship in the USA. Read more here: mindstormc14.weebly.com/

I am VERY impressed!

They have just begun the big task of raising funds to enable them to go to St Louis.

Very impressive. Well done to them

Fantastic!

As far as we are aware, it is the first home ed team to win the Nationals. It is usually a school team.

Whispers...My son is in the team. We're madly proud. (And fund-raising like crazy if anyone has a spare £10,000)

You'll accept the odd tenner though if that's what people can spare, won't you Velvet? If not, please send mine back

I'm glad to hear you are madly proud, cos you should be!!

BBC radio interview on listen again, 2 hrs 21 min in: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02hrftg

Do you have a donation page link at all?

What a lovely group of boys.

very impressive. £10,000 I would give that a miss if I were them.

Thank you Saracen, your £10 is very much appreciated. Every 20p from every car-boot item sold is appreciated. I was only joking and don't expect lovely peeps on the Internet to shell out. It's a huge amount which is scaring the pants off us but we're determined that they should go.
They've grown into mature young men as a result of working together and I would heartily recommend it as an activity for teens.

Oh I wasn't offering the whole 10, 000, but I'm sure home education groups and individuals would be happy to donate if you had a donation page.

I love this, I didn't know about Lego Mindstorm, it looks amazing. DS and I have been watching a few videos about it all and he's very interested.

You must be so proud, what an achievement.

Donation page is here: www.charitychoice.co.uk/fundraiser/c14-robotics/sponsored-5k-run

Wiifitmama wrote:
As far as we are aware, it is the first home ed team to win the Nationals. It is usually a school

The team I helped run in Swindon for several years won a prize at the Nationals several years (although not the overall championship award). We went to Eindhoven and Tokyo (and would have gone to Istanbul but for an Icelandic volcano ash cloud).

I totally agree with VelvetBee (I've already congratulated C14 but am happy to do it again) and recommend FLL to other HEors.

Thank you to everyone who's donated, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to be part of the wonderful HE community.
We've been offered a couple of big donations from tech companies which will help too and the flights are now booked. I keep trying to get DS interested in the sights of St Louis as I'd love to go (I'm not) but he just wants time to tweak the robot.
Tokyo sounds amazing. Shame about the ash cloud!

Wow, flights booked. What great news!

Yes, it's hard when you give your kids some "great opportunity" and their agenda for it is totally different from what yours would be!! I signed my younger dd for a series of fairly-pricy workshops an hour's drive away and she said she loved them... because she got to run around with her friends. Lovely and all, but she can run around with her friends for free around the corner from our house!

Thank you to everyone who donated to get the C14 boys to America. They flew on Monday and have spent the past few days setting up their stand and meeting young people from all over the world.
On Wednesday an American HE family took them out to dinner which was fantastically kind and welcoming. Yesterday they were judged on their project and core values and today is robotics day.
I had hoped to update earlier in the week but my tablet has died and I've had to resurrect the PC.
Live streaming (for the very geeky) is on championship.usfirst.org/first-championship/watch-it-live

Wow that's great, Velvet how exciting

Oh I am so pleased, you must all be very excited.
Good luck to them