Big Dreams in Umatilla

(gentle music) (birds chirping) Nobody ever expects anything from Umatilla like outside of our community. It's really frustrating. If you've worked here long enough, you have seen your kids in the paper for going to jail, a lot of times. Outsiders drive through town, and they laugh and think, "Who would live here?" They look at our demographics, they look at the things that make a splash in the newspaper, and they think that's who we are.

And it's just not. I've been here most of my life. And I consider it a small town, a middle of nowhere. Our sports teams aren't very big.

There's no big companies around here. (truck engine roaring) If you ever want to go out to eat, there's only like two places you can go. There used to be more, but I feel like places got shut down. So most people never leave their house.

And there's not much to do around here. (gentle music) We all have this small town in common. And I think everybody at one point in their life has that concept of like, "No, I wanna be the one person to do that amazing thing." But you grow out of that. People make assumptions of what Umatilla is and who we are.

There are kids who are dirt poor. There are kids who are upper-middle-class, and everywhere in between. We have a lot of kids that live right here in this motel area. We have a lot of kids who live in RVs, either right here or right up there next to the strip club.

In this town, everyone's pretty much on an equal playing field. None of us knew that we were below the poverty level, because that's what we've always grown up in. A father missing the house, parents wanting to divorce, children being the ones keeping them together. Those things tie us together.

There's a lot of people who are struggling to make ends meet. There's also a lot of immigrant families, people are saying, "What are we doing here? How do we fit in?" (speaks in Spanish) I was eight years old when I moved here to the United States. Adapting to a new culture was completely nerve-racking.

My mom doesn't speak English very well. She's like, "Teach me English. Just teach me English, I can be a part of this." There's lots of families that are trying to figure out, what does it mean to be in Umatilla? Our goal was, we wanted to somehow teach in the same school.

Good morning. Thanks for doing all this. And then somehow we heard about jobs in Umatilla. We come down for the interview, I go in for my interview, Kyle goes in for his interview.

Joey, you're gonna be in Johnston A5, have a good day. So we're driving home, and our phone goes off, and we already have a job offered. We were thinking, "Wow! They picked us." But what we realize now, is they were like, "Holy cow!

Two people that already said they would live in this town, we can fill two positions in one day! Done." So we said, "Sure." And went for it. I hope your tummy feels better. Have a good day, okay?

Our plan was to stay for two years. 'Cause when we pulled into town, we thought there's no way we're raising kids in this town. It just looked so hideously ugly. And then we moved in July, not realizing that this was a desert, and it was about 106 degrees, and we thought, "What did we just do?" But the only thing I know how to do is to invest in where I am.

I always want to make that the best it can be, and do my part to make that the best it can be. So I can't say that we thought we're gonna make this better, it was that we're gonna do our part. You know, your dream of this snugly cuddly, quiet little infant. No, no, that wasn't Heidi.

She cried a lot. She was super hypersensitive. She was really super active. I thought, "There's no slowing this child down." She's a go getter, and she's always going to be a go getter.

I grew up North of Spokane, right on the Canadian border, in a place called Colville Washington. And my parents met rodeoing. My mom was the barrel racer, and my dad was a saddle bronc. And then I had my stepdad.

He was a complete (indistinct), and he made our lives miserable, and we had a horrific upbringing with him. When Heidi was in high school, she was a mover and shaker. She was class president. She was chosen to go to Washington DC, so she's always wanted to make a difference.

My junior year, there was a super annoying guy in the seat behind me, just blonde blue eyed, dumb jock. She hated me, actually. Yeah, she didn't really see me as boyfriend potential. Initially, I probably fell in love with Kyle because he made me laugh harder than anybody I had ever met.

And yep, I was pregnant, April of my senior year high school. You may not know- We're obviously partners in our marriage, but we also are professional partners, in that we take on a lot of challenges together. I don't mind being the one that's not really the visionary like Heidi is, but I don't mind being the boots on the ground. So I was 24 when I switched to administration.

One day on a Friday, I got a visit from a board member who said, "We might need you to fill in a little bit this year." And I said, "Okay, no problem." And then on Monday we said, "Okay, you start tomorrow." And that's how I became a superintendent. (laughs) (upbeat music) The question of why I give so much, we never realized it wasn't an option. Why wouldn't we give so much? Why would we not chip in?

The why do we do? We can't figure out, because it never occurred to us to not do it, ever. (bell ringing) Wake up. Time to wake up.

Come on in and get comfortable. Here we go, eyes on me, listen up. If you haven't been a part of robotics before, the thing that you need to live and die by is the next seven weeks are the most important time of the whole entire year. It was at a regional hearing, and while I was there, there was this amazing group of kids.

They're talking about this robotics program that they had, and I thought, "Oh my gosh!" And so at that point, I talked about how great that program was, but that it's not available to kids in rural areas. And if that's something they're gonna have available, that I just think it should be for everyone. (dramatic music) Welcome to the first robotics competition, and the 2016 tournament challenge First Stronghold. The Alliance quest is to breach the opponent's defenses, known as the outer works, weaken their tower with boulders and capture.

The low bar in position one is permanent. The defense in position three changes periodically by audience selections. Robots start in the neutral zone, and may have one boulder each. Additional boulders will be placed on the midline and each castle.

Human drivers remotely control their robots. They retrieved boulders, overcome opponent defenses, and score boulders and goals from their opponents courtyard. Yes! As boulders are scored, the tower loses strength.

The Alliance with the highest score at the end of the match, earns the win. I assumed everyone in our high school would be equally pumped about this opportunity. And I put the all call out about, "Hey, we just have this much money to start a robotics team. This is what it looks like.

Here's some examples. Let me know if you wanna coach it." And there was crickets. We're going to make it so you guys are prepared, and you're able to hit the ground running. And so that led me to Kyle, who at the time was coaching both boys and girls basketball and football.

And so I said, "Hey, by the way, I need a robotics coach. And it just has to be you." It was just like a fly by night type of thing. She called me and she said, "We're gonna start a robotics team, but you're in charge. Will you do it?" And I just went, "Sure." The six week timeframe is just key for the whole event.

We'll be in the shop from after school until eight or nine o'clock at night, putting in 80 to a hundred hour weeks. We need to be deciding right n So one, what is the ideal robot? What is the ideal robot doing? Someone tells me.

They first started the team, and I didn't want anything to do with it. I thought it'd be just a bunch of nerds sitting around eating pizza. And I think that's pretty much what everyone thinks it is. There's some power tools, you're building a robot.

That was for nerds, and I was not a nerd. And I think that's one thing that we're really changing. Why do we even have to call it nerds? They're just robotics kids.

The goal by the end of today is really to pick what our strategy is, and start designing. The blue Alliance is here and there, drivers are here. Before robotics, I was very shy and timid. I didn't like putting myself out there.

After the first just couple of months of my first year, I got more comfortable with talking to people. And now that's the part I enjoy most, thinking of the strategy and developing the game. I am the build leader. I manage what everyone does while building the robot, what everyone's job is, and making sure they're doing it on time.

We don't have as much as other teams. A lot of them are sponsored by huge companies. They have tons of engineers, and they have built like two or three robots, but not having much doesn't mean you can't get anywhere. We're competing with these teams, and we're actually keeping up with them.

The first year, we walked in, and it felt like one of those bad news bears types movies, where you walk in with your rag tag group, and thinking you're really cool, and you look around and go, "Holy cow! We don't have a clue. What are we doing here?" We didn't understand that other teams had coaches that were real professionals. We had no idea that other robots aren't fully built by the kids.

We had no idea that there's machine shops that were just doing all of it. And here we show up, and we taught our kids how to weld by watching YouTube videos. Well, no one thought to look at the amperage, or how much electricity could pass through the connectors. Our robot caught fire.

That robot sucked. It wasn't the best. Yeah, it was awful. Alvin is a super quiet leader.

He's kind of a visionary too. When he see something that needs to happen, he's like "We got to find a way to make it happen." It's cool to see him grow up, and right now we treat him almost like a colleague. Everyone really has that thing that just gets them really interested. Like some people it's music, some people it's art, they see the finer things.

I love seeing how things work. I like not being taught things, I like figuring out on my own. And Mr. Sipe is definitely one of those amazing teachers that can see things, not just from a teacher's perspective, but he can also see things at an emotional level.

He can see the personalities of people, and how they would apply to different things. He's really good at making you focus on the problem, instead of getting frustrated by it, and going off in different directions. Prior to FRC, we're just a group of kids from a rural town. We had dreams, but didn't know how to make them a reality until FIRST.

Today we were working on our Chairman's essay, and the essay has to be under 10,000 characters, including spaces. And we thought success was for other people. FIRST made us change the way we think, spend our time, view others, and improve our confidence and work ethics. The Chairman's Award it's the highest one.

So if you win it at the district competitions, you will get an automatic ticket to go to the district championship. And then if you won the district championship, you get an automatic ticket to go to the world finals. It still makes us tear up to think of how FIRST not only impacts our lives, but gives our community a shared joy and something to cheer for. Okay.

One more time. That's two. When Umatilla was awarded the 21st century community learning center grant, I am really excited but nervous at the same time. This is my first time in Chairman's.

So right now my team and I, we're just practicing the lines, trying to memorize them, getting it ready for presentation. My stomach is tied in knots right now. The parents are just like, all they know is they're gonna not see their kids for the next six weeks. Midway through season, we get these phone calls of, "Do I ever get to see my kid again?" We're like, "No, a couple more weeks." You got your dad wrapped around your finger, did you- Mr.

Sipe is the teacher that, if they were younger and less old and less teachery, they could be your friend. It's a really supporting to have that person in your life, who you just feel like they want the best out of you or for you. And you can always wait for there to be more intro, and then go. Every defeat we've had, every tear that was shed, every time they said, "You can't do it" we never stopped trying.

We rose to the occasion. Programming was always an interest to me. I just never had the courage to actually do it. I just wanted to try out how programming is, and how hard it is for a programmer on the team.

Sometimes I'll find myself, the only girl in the shop, with all these guys. They'll be telling their guy jokes and stuff, and I'll crack a joke, and they'll all start laughing, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I have the teenage boy humor now." There's this preconceived idea that girls should be fighting to get the opportunities. I'm like, "No, the opportunity should be coming to me." I have all these ideas and all this talent that robotics has brought out in me. Other people should notice it.

(laughs)

It's 9

05 on a Sunday, I haven't been home all day. I have to get up early for school tomorrow, start the whole routine again. Can't wait. (car door thuds) I think my mom's very proud.

She likes to show off my medals and stuff. I'd usually just throw them in a box or something, but she likes to lay them out. She doesn't really know it's not a big deal. She just know it's something really good.

I have vague memories of being a kid. I was always at home doing my own thing, 'cause my parents were always busy working, and I never had any toys or anything. I just played with what I could find. But then I noticed there was some kids that don't even have what I had.

(car door thuds) It was second to last day of seventh grade, and I was walking home, and there were bunch of police vehicles all over. I walked into the living room, and I was like, "Mom, what's going on?" Apparently my dad was being arrested for something. They thought he was a drug dealer, and he also had unlicensed weapons or something. So they took him away.

And then we found out that my dad was sent to a penitentiary somewhere in Oregon. And so when things like that happened, I was just blank. And my mom had been working at Walmart for almost a year now. And she's been talking about splitting up with my dad for years and years.

I never thought I was gonna happen, but you see, she'd talk about it forever. But then, in robotics season. She even asked my help to go file the divorce papers, and I was like, "Oh, this is happening." (indistinct) One, two, three, four, five- With all of the problems at home grew me up, 'cause they were like a reality check. I'm a kid, but I have to do all this responsibility.

I have to make sure that the kids are okay. I wanna give my siblings everything I didn't have. I want them to have all the resources available, so they can do their best, and just go and choose whatever path they want. And that's what I wanna prove.

So that you can make something out of yourself, even if you don't have a lot of things. Three, two, one. (indistinct) (motor wiring) (people applauding) Before robotics, I wouldn't have taken any risk. Ready?

Right now, I see that there's a big chance that something great could come out of this. I'm doing all this robotics work and stuff, and I'm starting to see the bigger picture of, "Whoa, this is gonna give me this big opportunity." And before, I would have settled for the lesser thing, 'cause I would think it was too much work, too much money, too much time, things that I didn't have.

00 to 5

00 box, where I just do what I think I have to do to get along. I don't wanna end up being the adult leader who is regretting not taking advantage of all that. I have it outside my doorstep knocking like, "Hey, here's the opportunity." It's crazy not to take it. Is this the only day we're practicing this?

Yes. We'll do a little bit of rehearsal right before you go in. The entire team is not eligible for this award, you are. You made the opportunity for you to be selected as our representative, by the contributions you've already done.

Now it's your chance to take the opportunity and run with it. So in the next few questions, I want you to answer with the confidence that somebody who has done all the amazing things that you've done has earned. Okay. So Alvin, how have you demonstrated leadership in your team?

I don't know. So I know what you're thinking right now is, "Oh gosh, I don't really do a ton of things as a leader." And such and such maybe does more. Turn that voice off. Is that what you were thinking?

Yeah. So ready? Try again. I think a leader is someone who sets a good example by showing up on time.

That's okay. You take every single opportunity that you ever cross, right? You give it your best every time. I have never seen you do anything halfway, ever, ever.

Why is it important to you? I don't wanna lose all I've done so far. I don't wanna just stop and lose everything I've done. That's what motivates me.

I deser... I can work for more than that. And you almost said a word that I think it needs saying. It's a hard word to say, though.

It starts with a D and ends with a 'serve'. I was gonna say... I just- - I heard you almost say it. I deserve more than that.

Right. You being raised here, you having the life experiences that you've had, do nothing but make you more prepared to outperform anyone. Remember that you are bringing genuineness to the equation. You're bringing who you are, show them who you are, and be proud of who you are.

(crosstalk drowns out speakers) It is rare, at least in my life, to take opportunities like this, to remind you of who we are and really who we want to be. So often when someone receives a Jersey for their sports team, they own it for a small amount of time. They keep it clean, they wear it proudly in school, much less is thought about the person that wore the Jersey before them. Even less is thought about the next person that's going to wear the Jersey.

Leaders, you must realize there's interns, there's younger members. These are some of the next to wear your hat. Your leadership and knowledge of this team, your professionalism, your selflessness, guidance, friendship, courage, is the leading force and responsibility in wearing these hats. These hats are yours for only a short time.

Your goal is to make sure your hat is in the line of honor. You may be the first to wear this hat, but recognize you certainly won't be the last. So when I call your name, I need you to come down. Megan.

(audience clapping) Ryan. (audience clapping) Rebecca. Cameron. (audience clapping) Bradley.

(audience clapping) Allen. (audience clapping) Brenda. (audience clapping) Brandon. (audience clapping) Everybody else can grab what (indistinct) As this is the eve of our first competition this year, all of you please know our goals are achievable.

Be proud to know that you built this. (audience clapping) (upbeat suspense music) Guys. Everybody huddle up. Confidential whisper on three.

One, two, three. Let's go. (snapping fingers) Oh, say can you see By the dawn's early light Make a loud, make a crowd. This will be (indistinct) (crowd clapping and applauding) (rhythmic music) (indistinct) Behind you, you can't see it, trying to see.

Right there. (dramatic upbeat music) (crowd cheering) When our covert operation began in 2012, we had no idea what an impact we would make on our school, state, and country. So Chairman's is FIRST'S highest honor, and it's a lot of work. It requires the essay, it requires presentation, but what it means to the team if they win, is that they automatically are moving on.

Have you seen how it works? I've seen it's more of a vertical shooter. One of the awards that we're up for is the Engineering Inspiration Award, the judges interview the kids in the pits, which is why we keep her back in so often in the pits, and hopefully the judges like what we have. Could you do me a favor and get parents that wouldn't text me what they think, their ideas, and what we need to improve on?

Do you really think I could get parents to stop doing that? - Unbelievable. Just shooting way to the right. It's like a marathon runner, and you do get used to it.

You start learning how to battle through it, how tired you are and adversity. You and Rebecca, Capriana, Anthony, you gotta plan it out, okay? Pull the gearbox off, take that whole entire shooting array off, put the new shaft on, clip on the new gearbox, bolt it back on again as quick as possible. When things go bad and things get low, it is mental toughness and your experience and your maturity, that will pull you up, and get you back to the high.

Respond positively always and good things will happen. Help me understand an obstacle that you've had, and what you've done overcome that. They're probably gonna ask something like that. Even though I don't think I was good enough because I didn't have resources, but my team gave me a chance and I took it.

Nice. Thanks. You're good. You look good.

Fix your fly. It's not unzipped, but it's weird. And then my sophomore year, I became more on the designing, and building the robot than electrical. I was like maybe I could be a mechanical engineer.

Alvin is one of those kids, that it took me years to even figure out, who he was or that he even talked. He was very, very quiet. But at his dean's list interview, he talked about how his interests have changed, how his skills have progressed. He talked about how much he's grown.

He talked about what he tries to do for others. Good luck today. Thank you. He's deserved this opportunity.

He's worked so hard to be who he is today. And he is so clear about the vision he has for himself tomorrow, is just so exciting. Proud to know you. You know your fly is open?

So one of the things you see our kids doing in the stands is scouting. They're collecting data on every single robot that's out there. How many shots are they attempting to make? How many shots are they making?

What obstacles can they breach? What did they attempt to breach and succeed or fail? All of that goes into a database that Megan built. And she tracks all of that, and then computes a final score, for how the robots would be ranked if they had played individually.

So we're currently in 22nd place. So we are working with some teams, to get paired with them for Alliance selection. Hi, so I'm Cameron Sipe, I'm junior project manager, of Team 4125 Confidential. Our marketing team goes into fast action, and they will go sell themselves.

And saying we're ranked here according to alliances, but we're ranked here according to individual bot performance. And then you just have to hope that somebody tuned into that. But we just wanted to check in, and see how your Alliance choosing was going. We haven't decided yet.

Okay. All right. Is there anything you need from us at all? I'm thinking that's their way of turning us down, but I'm not sure.

And so our plan right now is that we would only talk to the top teams, that we want to be with. And say, "We can do low goal, we can do high goal. We can play defense. We can compliment you." Cyborgs came and talked to us again, after I went and talked to two other teams.

So their big question was, if we'd be willing to play defense. (laughter) - Oh, yeah. So we could still from this point forward, be matched up with other high scoring bots, and just take over from here. Our team's up.

Can we come back? Yeah. - Okay. Guys, really good job on a tiring, very long day.

The robot didn't get destroyed, and this is good. Tomorrow we have to be at our best. Your effort today was incredible, but there's 159 teams in our district that are just like us. Only three move on, which means you gotta take care of business tonight.

And you gotta go to bed and take that serious. We have to get our rest. (lady screaming) (laughter) Do you know what all the acronyms are? All the different scoring?

Yes. What's OPR? Offensive Point Ranking. And we were third on that most of the day today.

And then DPR is Defensive Point Ranking. And we didn't do quite as well on that one. I think we were fifth most of the day. The lowest we were ranked all day was 27th, right?

Out of 30, yeah. Dean's List is an award, is celebrates students who show outstanding leadership, and commitment to their school and to their community. These are students who are really role models, for the rest of us to look up to and to respect. This is a pretty big deal.

There's little trade schools, all across the country, like MIT and Yale and Princeton, who put the Dean's List students in a separate pile, and is a very short pile. And it will almost guarantee you an entrance interview. So it is really a big honor, to be recognized for the Dean's List Award. We have two Dean's List nominees, I'd like to invite these two students come down, Alvin Garcia from (audience cheering drowns out the speaker) This is a new experience for me.

I was like, "Whoa, Dean's List, that's for people who are good at stuff." But when I then reflected and I was like, "I guess I did do quite a bit." Robotics teaches you a lot of things. I realized you can aim high and fail, and then overcome that. Whatever is thrown at me, I'm sure I can get done. Even if I don't have the skills to do so, I have the skills to acquire the skills that I need to get through.

Let's do one more award. Okay, we'll do one more award. The West Valley district Chairman's Award, that honors the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate, and the best embodies the purpose and goals of FIRST. Influential, effective, enthusiastic, and grateful, are just a few of the words that describe this team.

They are a small team from a small town, advocating for FIRST at the local state and national level. This team led the development of the highest density of first teams, of any US school district with more than 1000 students. No longer top secret, this team's first success has been declassified. Congratulations, team 4125.

(audience cheer) (indistinct) Thank you all, good night. (indistinct) (laughs) I was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco Mexico. I have one little sister, she's in middle school, and a half-brother Santiago. I was eight years old, when I moved from Guadalajara, Jalisco to Hermiston, Oregon.

I knew very little English, couples of colors, how to say car or a dog and stuff like that. And then I moved to Umatilla in the sixth grade, when I was 11. Right now, my dad is in Mexico, so he's not really involved with us. There was a lot of conflict between him and my mom.

So after we moved here, they thought maybe starting over again, fresh would help them, but it just didn't work out. Right now my mom, she works at this potato factory kind of thing, but lately we've been really short on money. And so she's been trying to get credit also, to be able to buy a house later on maybe next year. So she's been working a lot more recently, to be able to provide for us.

And this is my grandmother right there, my aunt, another one of my mom, my great grandma. My mom would tell me stories about how people around town, will make fun of her and my uncles for being poor. But sometimes when they needed new shoes, they couldn't get them. So they probably be walking around bare foot.

A year and a half ago when I came back to Mexico, we didn't have really anywhere to go. So for a while I guess you could tell we were homeless, but we were staying at a shelter. My mom had to wake us up really early each morning, to take us to someone's house, because we weren't allowed to be in the shelter by herself without an adult in there. So our apartment, like I know it's small and all, but it has definitely made me appreciate that we are here.

I come from a family who hasn't had much education, and my goal is to be able to be the first one in college to be able to get a degree. So, yeah. So winning in Spokane made it so that we could compete here for Chairman's. If we win Chairman's here, then it takes us directly to world, and we get to compete at the world level for Chairman's.

And then Saturday afternoon is our alliance selection. And hopefully we get picked to be on an Alliance, and compete to win the event. Well, I need you to look around and walk around, and look at what some of the teams are doing, and see if they're starting to group together. The most we can do, and even as pushing it, is that what our chance of being a third pick?

Yeah. And with a third pick, there was no way to know? Someone needs to be down here, 'cause a lot of times kids come over and say, "Hey, where's your head scout." So top seven teams get to choose alliances. So it's basically like picking Dodge ball teams in PE.

What we're trying to do is either be their second or third Alliance pick. We're not gonna be a second pick Alliance. Just how it plays out, we could be a third pick. We'd have to get chosen by an Alliance, and then we'd feel a lot better.

If we don't get chosen, then all our hopes are on Engineering Inspiration or Chair Okay, 4574, and team 2990 would like to graciously invite team 4911. (audience cheering) (audience clapping drowns out the speaker) I can't stop crying. The robot wasn't picked for Alliance. So the kids that were more associated the robot, obviously are really upset.

A couple of them were brought to tears, because of the hope and then the let down. But we hopefully can get Chairman's or Inspiration Engineering to give us a ticket to the world. So that's basically what we're waiting for. 'Cause I will be sitting with Cameron in the stands, because she is going to crumble, if we don't win Chairman's.

She has dedicated this entire last year, all of her spare time to try to elevate the team, and hit that top Chairman's level. If it doesn't happen, holy cow! She's also gonna crumble if we win it. 'Cause the same reason.

(laughs) Either way we're gonna be picking Cameron off the floor. (laughter) The Chairman's Award is the most prestigious award at FIRST. It honors the team who just represent a model for other teams to emulate. It best embodies the purposes and goals of FIRST.

(audience cheering) Congratulations to (indistinct) (audience cheering) (audience cheering and clapping) (audience cheering drowns out the speaker) I don't know how to say this without sounding really egotistical, but it's rare that I'm driving back from big meetings, and I'm not fresh off of somebody offering me some sort of job. Where I'm looking at, should we move? Should we change? I also understand that for some reason, I've been given this really odd skillset.

And I don't think it's especially unique, but it's especially needed for some places. And when those places contact me, it's not usually that I want to go. The conversation usually is, "Where am I needed?" But as far as a desire to go somewhere else, I don't have that. And the desire to ladder climb, I don't have that.

But when people are talking to me about opportunities, of course, they sound great. And of course, that messes with my mind, and I think about them. But there's never one time there's been an opportunity where I wanted to leave Umatilla. I don't know, this place just got stuck in my heart somehow.

(lively music) I love you. I love you too mom. Good luck to everybody, I'm praying for you. (lively music) Brenda, Cam, Capriana.

(crosstalk drowns out the speaker) We put a lot of time and energy into getting the kids here. And it's not truly about whether or not, they come home with this big championship, it's about them running into people from all around the world. It's about them meeting people with different experiences. And it's mainly about them building the confidence in themselves, to realize that they're surrounded by the best in the world, because they're also the best in the world.

And that's a pretty great thing. (lively music) Is that the great Salt Lake? Look kids, the great Salt Lake is to your right. (lively music) (crosstalk drowns out the speaker) Yeah, we're on the side of the road now.

And the exit says, exit 376, we have kids on the bus, and quite a few adults. So if you get to plan a ride, that would be awesome. I feel bad for the kids. They seem to be happy though.

Yeah they do. Well, they have optimism that you rubbed off on them. I have a horribly twisted sense of humor, and I find this whole situation hysterically funny. How funny?

Okay, number one, I'm taking this majestic photo of the bus, and then smokes comes out of it, funny. Then we tell the kids, "It's just gonna be a minute." And they're getting yelled at by one of the drivers, about, "Keep your hands in the bus," and all this stuff. We think this is gonna be like a 10 minute deal, funny, two. Three, the mechanics says it's gonna be 10 to 15 minutes.

That was like two hours ago, he just showed up, funny. Four, these random people who're willing to totally change their evening to come pick us up. And I was desperate enough, I was gonna put our kids on the train, or to car with these random people, because I see them better than where we're at right now. Funny.

This is funny. (laughs) Things are bad, but you're amazingly positive. That's great. Thank you man.

I like you too. You're adorable. Okay, so here's the mechanic. And here's a little funny.

(laughter) He's saying, "Come on, come on, come on." That's the best I've got, that's all I've got. So here's what happened. We had the one, two punch of bad gas and a bad sensor, all for fun. And we have a backup plan.

So Burlington is only about 47 miles away. There's a shorter bus company in Burlington. And we made arrangements for them to pick us up, and everything was gonna be fine, except they just got hit by that tornado. And all their buses are flooded in, and they can't get them out.

So here's the big plan. There's a gentleman that owns the bus company, and he's agreed to drive us as far as Topeka. So then in Topeka, a different bus company is gonna pick us up, and then they're going to take us to the next spot. And we're just gonna keep doing that until we end up there.

If you think you're gonna go through a tornado, it's best to do it at night. Then you don't see what's happening, right? Now, that's what I mean. Then we won't have any level of stress.

It'll just be like "Oops, what just happened." Right? Yeah. (crosstalk drowns out the speaker) Pretty excited to be in Missouri finally. What was supposed to be a 33 hour road trip?

We're now an hour 48. We've spent eight hours broken down, four on Utah, four in Colorado. We're on our fourth bus. So apparently even numbers are thing right now.

We made it! Oh, this is like paratroopers. Go, go, go, go, go, go. Run, run, run.

I think the reason that robotics is important, has nothing to do with the machines at all, and everything to do with the confidence, the independence, the motivation, all of those internal professional skills and identity skills. Anytime a kid fits in, anytime a kid finds something, that they really feel passionate about. Anytime a kid fits an environment where they're like, "These are my people." Those are the moments to create for kids. Look at this.

Isn't that cool? (upbeat music) Yeah, we gotta roll. We gotta roll. We gotta do it now.

Come here, walk with me. Okay. So when you're coaching with these guys, your main role is keep Bradley and Alvin to very simple strategy, okay? And make sure that they're having meaningful conversations, and talking strategy when they're queuing up.

Keep reminding them how much time, especially the Bradley. Started counting down like the last 20. Okay. Okay?

- Okay. We don't really have time for you to get a practice match. Ms Sipe just found out that, that we had to go get ready for dinner. So this is all just thrown at us.

Okay. - Okay? Any questions? It's like you're doing anything and taking a chance, right?

You've gone water skiing before? You're going to water skiing. You can go try it. See how fun it is.

You're going there right after the match go, "Man, I should have done this." If you're going to have about five or six of those, you can't live in the past. You just got to move ahead, okay? Why are you crying? I think I know why, you're awesome kid.

(crosstalk drowns out the speaker) So we're headed to our match. This is potentially our last match ever. We're competing with the best 600 teams in the world. So to even be one of those teams and make it here, so really exciting.

And it's the first time I've ever been on the field. I get to see all the work that I do behind the scenes, with scouting play out on the field and do the strategy, that the drivers get to do. Every time they go out and compete. And then I go bring it over there.

Good evening. Let me begin by saying thank you, to all who have opened the hearts and minds, of the students in rural Oregon, and our Northeast corner of Oregon. We have a shortage of both industry and opportunity, too few kids attend college. About five years ago, I learned about FIRST, and brought it to my school district.

FIRST has been amazing. FIRST provides our schools with the perfect combination, of interest, robots, drive, the competition, soft skill building, gracious professionalism, hard skill building, programming, designing and building, electro-mechanical systems, and marketing, and access to STEM professionals and universities. It also allows my students to dream new dreams. I go from watching them, be students who lack vision, skill and confidence, to becoming leaders who believe they can do anything.

25% of the kids in our district, are now on the first team of the seniors on our team. 100% have both graduated from high school, and gone into college. FIRST works. (audience cheering) We lost 176 to 102, 35 of it was foul points, was breaking down in their court.

Oh my gosh. What happened? Oh no. Somebody have Megan on suicide watch.

It's not her fault. I already prepped her for that. Okay. (upbeat music) Let's go FIRST.

Let's go FIRST. I've had amazing four years. And so no matter what the outcome is, we had an amazing season. Just the opportunity to be here at the championship.

That's really great. (lively music) (audience cheering) (playful music) So after worlds, just a lot of things started happening really quickly. The kids had just gotten stomped. I mean, they lost so badly.

And then there was some job opportunities across the state, that were opening up. Also various pressures about, "Can we keep the momentum that we've built through all the various afterschool programs?" And a lot of soul searching went on in a very short period of time. So we waited through some different opportunities, and some different careers moves. I don't know what kind of cheese goes on a meatball sub.

Okay, great. And then two- Kyle was teasing me. He's like, "You just need an excuse to stay. Don't you need an excuse?" I probably need an excuse.

Why this house? I've always liked this house. Since the last one, he said, "Well, why don't we just buy the house across the street?" We've always loved the look of this house. And so we decided to go for it.

Where are we gonna put it? I'm thinking in the (crosstalk drowns out the speaker) Cam's three-year-old preschool. (laughs) That was when she went by Cami So that was a very bittersweet thing, because leaving that house was really hard, just 'cause we raised our kids there. But it's great, because we get to see it across the street.

All of a sudden Caden grew up. Man, he must have heard, look at that. I remember thinking he was so tall. We've always told ourselves that as soon as we aren't the people, that are making good things happen for kids, when that's maxed out, then it's time for us to go, because we would never want to be in the way of progress.

But until then, we have stuff to do. And there's also so many kids we can't imagine leaving yet. We don't want to not see how their story ends yet. And we want to be there for that, and see them change and grow.

So for purely selfish reasons, we chose to stay in Umatilla. (gentle music) (ethereal logo music)