Blog is Back on Track. Gators going to Worlds

Well, I've been a little lax in my blogging duties. I'm back now, and boy do I have a lot to talk about.
In about 12 hours I will be headed to the airport with the 5 members of the Geared Gators and their parents to hop a plane to Dallas TX where we will be competing in the VEX Robotics World Championships!!!!!!!!!! The Gators are a team of two 5th graders and three 6th graders that finished up a very successful Lego season back in December. sometime in January they decided to give VEX a try, just to see how they would do against the high School teams.In one month and only 5 meetings, the team had a working bot and ventured off to Wentworth Institute of Technology to take on some very good HS teams. Not only did they prove they could hang with the big dogs, but they ended up being the captains of the 2nd place alliance and went on to take the highest honors of the tournament by winning the Directors Award of Excellence, which is presented to the best all around team of the tournament. this qualified them to go to Dallas to take on 420 teams from about 40 countries from around the globe.
Their goal for the big event..... don't come in last!
Just to add to the excitement, I have been selected to be the emcee for one of the competition arenas, and may get the chance to share the microphone with Mythbusters own Grant Imihara!!!!
The competition is running Thurs - Sat, the 22nd to 24th of April. It will be televised live on the NASA channel, and there will also be 5 separate live web casts. I will post the web cast links once I get them.
I have to go pack, but I'll blog from my blackberry to keep everyone in the loop.