Today Lorri brought me over her awesome pictures and video from the OKLAHOMA REGIONAL!!!!! Lisa texted me at 10pm after she had worked and sorted on the pictures she had taken all day, which totaled over 1000. I can’t wait to see them!

FIRST OF ALL,

We would like to send a HUGGEEE thank you to Team Titanium for welcoming us home this morning, with not only a lovely shiny banner and people, but CUPCAKES and music. It was a lovely homecoming, we really really appreciate it.

Also, a very  very large thank you to Paul from Driven who originally came down to cheer us on in OK, then ended up helping us program and be a fun day addition to our team. He helped our programming team find some errors and set stuff up so we could score in auto. A big shout-out to Hillary too who came to cheer us on and party with our team. Hillary is always a big help with her experience and knowledge.

By the way, we won the Website Award, Entrepreneurship  Award, were on the winning regional alliance along with 2410 and 935, and Chairman’s.

We made it to Oklahoma City at about 9:?? tonight. Yay!!! We start practice tomorrow morning sometime early. There should be a webcast starting Friday, so I can find that link hopefully sometime soon. Thanks to our awesome driver Dean for getting here safe!

We started our Give Back the Magic program this week. The Disney program “Give a Day, Get a Day” reached their goal of 1,000,000 tickets already, but what I realized is that even if we don’t get to give back many Disney tickets, we are spreading the magic in other ways. For example, today we worked at Operation Iraqi Children. We packaged school kits that get sent to soldiers overseas who then distribute them to kiddos in Iraq and Afghanistan. These kits will make a difference in many kids lives, 780 children to be exact. We have a great education system here, and in Iraq they are still restructuring an educational system, and I’m betting supplies are limited. We had 17 great volunteers from our team today, I’d like to thank them all for taking a day of Spring Break and volunteering.

I did a little research on Iraq’s educational system. Here are a few interesting points I found: “This stems from the fact that the country’s economy has been mismanaged for 40 years, and a country that once held a bright private sector and educated population has come to have one of the lowest human development indicators in the region.”

“Because of under-funding by the Hussein regime, in 2003 an estimated 80 percent of Iraq’s 15,000 school buildings needed rehabilitation and lacked basic sanitary facilities, and most schools lacked libraries and laboratories…In the 1990s, school attendance decreased drastically as education funding was cut and economic conditions forced children into the workforce.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Iraq)
“Iraq’s adult literacy rate is now one of the lowest in all Arab countries; UNESCO estimates literacy rates to be less than 60 percent, or 6 million illiterate Iraqi adults. Rural residents and women have been hit hardest; only 37 percent of rural women can read, and 30 percent of Iraqi girls of high school age are enrolled in school compared with 42 percent of boys.” (http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/accomplishments/education.html) Restructuring an entire education system after creating a new government obviously is difficult, therefore anything can help. Our packages will help kids get through school.

Thanks again for all the volunteers!

Congratulations to our sister schools, Team 1730 and 1986, on a job well done at the 2010 Greater KC Regional! Team 1986 and 1730 ended up on an alliance along with Blue Springs. Being on the field volunteering all three days, I had the opportunity to see all the great teams in attendance. The matches today were action packed the whole way through! The end game is so awesome!

Congratulations to all the teams at the Greater Kansas City Regional 2010, Team Driven for winning Engineering Inspiration, qualifying them for Atlanta, and Colin from Team 1986 and Paul from 1730 for winning the NEW Dean’s List award! What a great city to be a part of–Go Lee’s Summit, Missouri!