Hi, we’re the Techno Travelers.

“ Hi, we’re the Techno Travelers. We’re a Minnesota-Florida exchange team.”

I’m on a Lego team called the Techno Travelers. This year, we have seven members on our team: Aaron, Hans, Brennan, Kelten, Jessi, Zac, and me. Zac lives in Florida. We have an age range from 6th grade to 9th grade. We communicate with Zac via webcam and a desktop sharing program called mikogo.

Anyway, this year, our team made it to the MN State competition. While we knew that our robot could get a perfect score (400), we continued to do terribly in our board runs. Down on the practice tables, we were getting perfect, and at home, too. Unfortunately, our board run scores didn’t match up with those scores. But in our presentation, we did exceedingly well. After everything, we had three callbacks, and championship judging! So we went to the callbacks for innovative design (for the robot), innovative solution, and teamwork judging, then right into Championship judging.

We were all very excited for the awards ceremony. When they started handing out awards, we weren’t getting any, so we were getting anxious. Then it came time to announce the Championship award. They started describing why they chose this team. “The winning team had done a wonderful job with community outreach in their area. Their teamwork was strong, and they had a unique innovative solution.” Our coach, Deb, turned and looked at us with this look that said, “ Can it really be…?” we all sat waiting, then… “Team 784, from St. Peter, the Techno Travelers!” We were all so excited, that Jessi forgot that Brennan and Kelten’s little sister was sitting on her lap, and in our little huddle, we all nearly stepped on her.

Now, the techno travelers are going to Atlanta, GA in April for the World Festival! We will get to meet teams from around the world! It’s going to be lots of fun! I’m very glad that I got to be a part of this!

By Sarah