Future City Engineering Competition

What a long day it was - full of emotions, pride, nervousness, suspense, hope and then disappointment too. First of all, I am SO proud of the Hempfield Homeschool Future City team!!!! They did a terrific job and their model, presentation, performance, assignments were all top-notch. They stood out as a very excellent team - and they were also the only homeschooled team there!

They were very impressive, and the model looked fantastic! Out of 47 teams, we really believed that we could go first place. For the whole day, Joel and the other two team members who were picked as "presenters" had to answer questions from the judges about their future city. Then they had to go to another room and perform their oral presentation in front of a group of judges and answer more questions about their city, particularly the engineering aspects of their city. We couldn't observe that part - we just prayed for them!

Then later in the day, the top 6 teams were announced. The top 6 teams would be advancing to the final round and Hempfield Homeschool team was announced as being one of the top finalists! Yay team! Each of the finalists then had to perform their oral presentation to the final judges on stage - in front of the whole audience of people. So then we could see them give the performance and they did GREAT!!!! We were so proud of them!!!! Then they had to answer more questions from the final judges. We were very happy with how well they did and we really thought that they could very easily place first or second place.

However, in the end, it was announced that they won the "Honorable Mention" spot, the 4th place winners! Not bad to be 4th place out of 47 teams - mostly from large schools, some with more than twice the number of team members. (Our team only had 9 students and some schools had up to 30 some) Anyway, we were very proud of them, yet honestly, very disappointed. Joel just about cried. But we did win two special awards - best electro-engineering and best problem solving awards. We won over $400 in cash prizes and they got medals and plaques to take home, pictures in the newspaper, interviews and the good feeling that comes from doing their best and working very hard.

We expected to place higher, but we went home happy and praising God for it all. It was a great experience and even the disappointment is another lesson in life. I believe the team was honorable and I am very proud of the honorable mention! They are winners in my book!!

I took several pictures - check back here tomorrow for them. It's late now and I need to go to bed!