Allllllmoooooossst Donnnnee!

Well after many schedule changes, a lot of stress and exhaustion we are almost finished with the MoonBots challenge for this year! We have overcome many challenges this MoonBots season and I am very proud of the work our team has done! Our biggest challenge was that we were having a hard time finding a space to set up our challenge board in so we asked if we could use the schools stage. That space was definitely big enough, but easily accessible to many people, (people who are very interested in playing with LEGOs) we had one day where we came in and our program wasn't working AT ALL and we were so frustrated, until one of the team members realized that the launch pad had been moved on the board!
Another major challenge was that the schools Internet would not allow us to use skype or any other public video chat feature, so the night before the competition we had to move the entire board to a house a couple of blocks away from the school. It was an interesting experience, one I would NOT encourage others to do. Lets just say that the challenge board is a LOT easier to disassemble (practically effortless) then it is to assemble! We basically had to rebuild everything before the competition.
Its okay though, it was all worth it at 5:30am Hawaii Time when we met to have our judges interview..granted the sun wasnt up and we had to get creative with the lighting so that the challenge board could even be seen with the webcam, and most of the team was half asleep, I think we did great during our interview, and our robot did exactly as it was supposed to the very first time!
Overall I think MoonBots 2.0 was a great experience for our island. We were able to educate 7,000 people about how they use STEM in their everyday lives, showcase a LEGO moonscape to 350 elementary school students, represent the entire state of Hawaii in a global competition, and expand our own critical thinking and inquiry skills. While we are happy that it is all over now and we can take a breather, we are looking forward to the possibility of competing in next years challenge!
Signing out for Molokai Mahina 2.0,
Aunty Jenn
Molokai Mahina 2.0 Coach