Dear Team.
I was on the road half the day yesterday thinking about all the great things that happened on Saturday. Sophia and I laughed out loud so many times sharing what each other observed / experienced. One thing is for sure. I could not have asked for a better team or better work out of a team. Each and every one of you should be proud of what you accomplished on so many levels. Let me tell you why... (Please excuse any unintentional omissions or errors. I drove 8 hours yesterday and am still tired. Also, I know this is long but you may enjoy actually reading all of it so wait until you have the time. Hint: you'll be glad if you make it to the end.) Team Ranking: 8th place overall. (Top 6 are going to State.) It's not what we hoped for but there's a lot can be said about what we accomplished here. We landed 2 spots below IMSA. We beat some very large (Oswego East) and very respectable (Lake Forest Academy) schools. We were the only team in our division competing in all the events with just 10 kids, no building, very little resources, and volunteer parents / coaches. After extending congratulations to our middle school division sister team, Fox Valley Homeschool, on their 5th place finish earning them a trip to State, their coach Mrs. Tina Cumbey and I are more convinced than ever this is a numbers game. That team competed with 13 this year, their biggest roster to date. We had only 10. There are 15 spots on the team. You guys are awesome. We just need a few more of you to go the distance. We still had a great finish even though our season is over. (So we have our party sooner rather than later. It's all good.) 1st Place: Spirit Award. I've said it before. This is the only category that counts in the long run. 20 years from now it won't matter if a ping pong ball landed in a bucket. But it will matter that you each conducted yourselves with maturity and respect beyond your years. As you read through the rest of this e-mail (sorry Mrs. Ramsey. I have to go narrative today) look for comments marked with * indicating activities that, in addition to quality personal interactions you each had with all of your judges *, may have contributed to our winning this award. Funny thing happened in the scoring room. I was turning in our judging results from WIDI -B when I realized I hadn't filled out a coach ballot for Spirit Award. We did fill out a judge ballot for a Div. B team since that's who we saw in WIDI. But my coach ballot was in our homeroom with the rest of my stuff. So I asked the organizer for a replacement ballot because I hadn't voted that yet. She said, "They're already done calculating that." Me: "I haven't voted and I would like to." Her: "The trophies are already out there." Me: "My students cleaned up our homeroom and packed all my materials * into my car including my ballot." Her, while smiling: "You can go to your car to get your ballot." Me: "They have my keys too." Her: "We don't have any more ballots." Me: "OK." Later she confirmed she knew my vote wouldn't matter regardless of who I voted for. The majority had already spoken and we were decided winner without my vote. (You earned every one of those votes that day.) 1st Place: Air Trajectory - Derek & Joe. From what I heard this was a real crowd pleaser! (When did you decide to try the bucket shot?) The whole gym erupting in cheer at one ping pong ball landing in a bucket? That's awesome! You turned PVC pipe, pennies, and a ping pong ball into a piece of engineering art. Great job! 1st Place: Wright Stuff - Jake & Derek. Now this was a nail biter! From getting in a time slot that fit and being able to do it gracefully and in such as way as to not raise an arbitration issue * , to seeing the plane break on the second flight and reacting with grace * , to knowing who we were up against (former US National champion). You held up under pressure and soared to new heights. We might have known from the judge's reaction to your first flight time but were kept in suspense all day. Great job! 3rd Place: Bridge Building - Jake & Matthew. Have you all seen the slow motion video? It goes on forever with sand just going down, down, down. Then it blows up in a glorious fail! Really, really cool! It was a really nice bridge and brought in a really nice medal. Great job! 3rd Place: It's About Time - Jake & Leo. So was it true? Was it a pendulum device that won? Sounds like our pendulum device did pretty well. It certainly takes the gold for consistency being one of our regularly medaling events all year. Great Job! 3rd Place: Mission Possible - Leo & Joe. Along with winning 3rd place at Regional, this device should get the most improved award. Team, do you realize Leo took apart the device after each competition and started over incorporating what he observed at each of those Invites? This is the first time I ever saw fire in a MP device. (Yes, Mrs. Ramsey. He used real fire.) Beyond the obvious level of innovation evident * , what strikes me most is the development of an apparent mentor relationship between Leo and Mike Quill, State Supervisor of MP. I was pleased to see Mike came out of his judge seat after the 3rd place medal was called, walk over to the bleachers, shake Leo's hand and clap him on the back in congratulations. Then after the crowd dispersed he hung around and talked with Leo and his dad for a long time. Mike also told both me and Mrs. Cumbey, coach of our middle school division sister team, that he teaches two homeschooled kids he's recommending join our team * . That's right. The Illinois state supervisor for Mission Possible is recruiting for OUR team! (I gave him our website and will follow up with personal e-mail.) 4th Place: Astronomy - Jake & Joe. Another very consistent event for us. The two of you worked hard on this all year and it paid off. Big dedication to no small subject. Great job! 5th Place: Compound Machines - Jake & Leo. I saw the device. (Was that a machine?) Really cool! Great job! 5th Place: Technical Problem Solving - Jake & Maddy. On any team there are people playing different roles. Maddy was our longest serving floater this year. She was willing to be assigned * to the TPS team the night before with the instruction to assist Jake doing whatever he asked her to do. She was put there because every one else was schedule conflicted and she has good handwriting. There are a few events where a scribe is an important role. This is one of them. Jake said publically, he could not have completed the event in the time allowed without Maddy's contribution as scribe. He also said she graphed the data he gave her in a very good way. Maddy, please know that you did in fact earn that medal. Jake, I am proud of how you treated all your floating teammates all year with respect and equality * including waiting for Maddy at the bottom of the bleachers * to walk over to the medal table together. (Facing even smiling judges can be intimidating.) Great job! ============= Even though this is the end of the medal round, events that finished 7th or lower are just as important. At their various levels they contributed value to the overall team score. In some cases there may have been as little as .001 between them and the next higher placement. Achieving this level in this field of competition is remarkable on its own and these competitors are congratulated for that. Because they have been on the upswing over the past few months I have no doubt that if we had one more competition these events would continue to finish higher and higher. (As an encouragement I will be listing if any of these events ranked above any of the top 7 finishing schools that came in ahead of our team ranking.) Back to the results. ============= 7th Place: Bungee Drop - Sophia & Joe. If we saw no other improvement in this event this year I still call it a success for overcoming the dreaded elasticity test * , no small feat in the dead of winter especially since it is still not clarified on the official SO website *, and mastering the manipulation of the drop formula! By participating in this event Sophia is also learning about the properties of rubber. Last year it was shrinkage. This year it was stickiness. If we had one more competition with this device we might have oiled or treated the rubber bands somehow so that they would more willingly slide against each other during drops rather than sticking. I know not everyone is interested in those concepts. What is applicable to all is the trial / error / observe / improve process. Here's hoping stick-to-it-ive-ness and willingness to stretch oneself is a trait we all can take with us. Well done! (You came in ahead of IMSA who is going to State.) 7th Place: Forensics - Sophia & Lucy. This is huge! Finishing 7th place at Regional in an event some might think is hopeless is fantastic. (Big shout out to Mrs. Walko, Assistant Coach from our middle school sister team, who was Sophia's first Forensics event coach and continued to advise us last year and this year.) Sophia & Lucy, you dedicated time to work on this and came up with good process improvement. Propping up your chromatography with a bent piece of wooden stick * and labeling your beaker "Learning Vine" at the communal station * was innovative and memorable. (The rest of the teams either had to stand there or lost their papers for falling into the beaker.) Charting, drawing your conclusions, time management, all good skills you'll take with you. Well done! (You came in ahead of Metea who is going to State and Lisle who finished above our team overall.) 7th Place: Fossils - Lucy & Sophia. This was all about the binder and that was all Lucy. Research, data collection, and organization, all things you can take with you in life. And the binder we can update or use again for next year if the event remains. Well done! (You came in ahead of IMSA who is going to State.) 7th Place: Green Generation - David & Daniel. A very respectable finish indeed! Daniel, we hope you enjoyed your visit to the team and will think about joining us next year. David, you brought this event to a competitive level within striking distance of a medal which also helped the team ranking tremendously! The both of you can certainly be proud of this accomplishment. Well done! (You came in ahead of Metea who is going to State.) 8th Place: Protein Model - Matthew & David. I saw your model sitting with the rest of them in the test event room. It looked great and certainly the 3" x 5" card was right in with the others' formats. 8th place is a very respectable finish at Regional especially in this very competitive field. I'm proud of what you've accomplished and I hope you are too. Well done! 9th Place: Experimental Design - Sophia & Maddy. This event is about recognizing an unspoken question, developing a way to find an answer, finding that answer, and reporting all of it according to a standard. Our team was the reigning 2nd place Regional medalist in this event and you two kept us in the ball game with this finish. What I am most proud of is that you jumped in, used your noggins, and dug through. A very strong finishing place for an event neither of you prepared to do. Well done! (You came in ahead of IMSA who is going to State.) 9th Place: Write It Do It - Derek & Joe. "Hexagons in a box." Now go build that. Could you do it? Derek and Joe did. Functioning within unnatural guidelines is challenging. You conformed and came out with a finished product. That is something to be proud of. Well done! (You came in ahead of Naperville North who is going to State.) 10th Place: Chem Lab - Jake & Maddy. This is a challenging event and we're grateful for Maddy's willingness to sub in. The two of you kept us out of the basement with this finish and we're hopeful for team improvement next year. Nice job! (You came in ahead of Lisle who finished above our team overall.) 10th Place: Entomology - Lucy & Derek. Thinking maybe there were no vampire butterflies this time around? You kept us out of the basement with this finish and we're hopeful for team improvement for next year. Nice job. 10th Place: Geologic Mapping - Sophia & Derek. Sophia told me she did the rocks part and Derek did the mapping part. This is a good example of divide and conquer. I'm thinking we just ran out of time to prep for or it could have finished higher. Still, nice job because... (You came in ahead of Naperville North who is going to State.) 11th Place: Disease Detectives - Jake & Derek. Hoping it didn't put you at a disadvantage arriving a few minutes late from Wright Stuff. (That was worth it though.) You said the questions were weird and that sometimes happens. Different judges have different perspectives on the subjects. You never know what you're going to get. Might as well enjoy the chocolate then, right? Nice job. 13th Place: Anatomy & Physiology - Maddy & Matthew. 13th Place: Cell Biology - Matthew & David. 13th Place: Dynamic Planet - David & Joe. I only have two comments on our 13th place finishing events. I think this is where it shows we are short handed. David came on board only a month ago and did what he could. Matthew and Joe were spread out in other events. What our team lacked this year was someone jazzed about biology to really shine with some of these. Still, it is no doubt in my mind that it shows character that we mounted students to compete in every event * including these. Second, had all four of our 13th place finishers been "no shows" we would have earned 14 points each of them rather than 13. That's a 4 point differential. We were precisely 4 points ahead of the 9th place team behind us, Oswego East. Personally, since my family lives in District 308 and Sophia would be attending Oswego East if she were in public school, I can not tell you how meaningful it is to me and my family that our team came in ahead of them. 13th Place: Scrambler - Sophia & Lucy. Yes car 4.0 failed. Thanks to Mr. Gavin's insight, and other observations about rubber getting sticky, we think we now know what one step could overcome that string issue. One more competition and this event would easily have been in top tier medal contention. It was launching with top three accuracy during trials at Aurora Skate Center. (Shout out of thanks to Dan Warner for giving us access to the skate floor.) Trial and error. Innovation and invention. Data observation and calculations. Yah, that. Here's what you really need to know about Scrambler. I attended a coaches meeting with all the Regional coaches including the Scrambler Regional judge, who also judged at Huntley. From a comment he made to the group I took him to be critical and picky, someone who doesn't take any gruff. The fact that he ding'ed our Scrambler team for 1,000 point penalty on a 1mm build violation at Huntley Invitational confirms that. (Consistent with what our Libertyville Scrambler judges did as well.) Even so, Sophia and Lucy were poised to make a good impression on him at Huntley. They took the 1mm build violation in stride * and responded with good advocacy skills when he questioned them on a design element we "borrowed" from something seen on a Stevenson car. (Shout out to Mrs. Montalbano and Mr. Johanik for that idea.) This guy is the head coach of Waubonsie Valley's team and he had to consult his rules sheet at Huntley based on Sophia and Lucy's knowledge of the event * and advocacy for their position * . Fast forward to Regional where Scrambler car failed to cross the start line due to the dreaded string vs. rubber washer issue just diagnosed by Mr. Gavin the day before. Scrambler judge attempted a sympathetic comment at the failure to Sophia & Lucy who responded, "That happens sometimes." * Scrambler Judge replies, "Well, I hope the rest of your events go well for your team." Just then the entire gym erupts in cheer for a singularly phenomenal event; a ping pong ball landing in a bucket. * Sophia answers back to Scrambler Judge, "Thanks. Apparently we just did." * Scrambler judge laughed. After all the awards were announced and the D204 schools were taking their "We're headed to State" team photos in the bleachers, Scrambler Judge, himself head coach of WVHS, came through the crowd on the gym floor to find me. He said something like this. "I wanted to come find you and tell you how impressed I was with your students, all your students, but especially the Scrambler team." (I thanked him for judging Scrambler.) "I've seen them a few times throughout the season. They always conduct themselves with an impressive level of grace and maturity. * When their car failed, rather than react badly they simply said, 'Sometimes that happens.' They are a very impressive group and you should be proud of what they've done. * " I was shocked because he said it with such eloquence and high vocabulary I didn't even recognize him as the same guy who did not strike me at all as graceful at the coaches meeting. He was literally praising our kids while his team sat waiting in the bleachers. I'll say it again. I couldn't be more prouder of any of you for how you preformed on Saturday. You each represented your faith, families, and homeschooling community with grace and excellence. I consider it a privilege to hear these reports and be associated with each and every one of you. Blessings, Mrs. Guo ps: We're off to basketball now. Please forgive any omissions or errors you may have found.
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Brenda G.Enjoying the journey through my kids' childhood as a home educating mom. (And no, I don't have time for a blog but sometimes you just gotta write.) Archives
April 2019
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