26th place!

We are so excited to be in 26th place.  A much better finish than last year and they did great.   We also went to the "after party" for the pre-teen set.   It was LOUD and BUSY and VERY HOT!   It's time for bed and a few hours of sleep before we start out tomorrow morning.

We'd like to thank everyone for their support!

Jeanne

Photos of Team Challenge

Here are some photos of the team challenge from today.  We tell the boys before each challenge, give us your credentials and with that give us your nerves -- you keep your teamwork, creativeness and most importantly your FUN factor.  That said, the people holding 6 boys nerves should not be the picture taker!  :-)

Checking the props before "go time"

Lined up - the Official was taking their photo



Talking to the Appraiser -- seems that they needed to put electrical tape over the electromagnet alligator clips -- no problems for them!  They did want the fudge bar that that official was eating.

On the "launch line"

 GO!

Working their challenge - assembling and telling their story

Tonight -- closing ceremonies and after party.  

Jeanne

Team Challenge

We're done competing!  The props looked great, they did really good and worked well as a team.  The comments from the judges were very nice with comments on their teamwork, the creativity and research into their project.  They got more product points than they expected but lower on their props (which is to be expected at Globals).  Their goal was to have fun and learn -- so I'll say that the trip was a success.  All we have left is packing, packing and oh yah, Closing ceremonies and the after party.   Everyone is walking around with a glazed, tired look so it must have been a successful trip.

Heading home tomorrow morning early with the hopes of making Ames in one day (only 15 hours). 


Jeanne

Instant Challenge update

25% of the score is the Instant Challenge where the boys have 5-8 minutes to solve a challenge they have never seen.  They can't tell us what the challenge is until Globals is over, but what they can tell us is how they think they did.... more on that later.

To "warm" them up (as if the 96 degree heat didn't do that), they line up the teams that go in to challenge at the same time.   (They have many at elementary, middle, secondary and university going on at all times).  During the line up they play music and get the kids to "dance".   We have found out that we are danced impaired (or as the boys call it "fail").  But they did have fun!  They did the chicken dance and a few others.  

Once they are ready to go into the Instant Challenge the teams and parents waiting form a tunnel for them to run through.  It is so fun, but the Nelson's had an extra special helper with the tunnel as they suspended Evy as the roof to the tunnel.  So many people taking pictures and all the teams enjoyed it.

So,  how did they do in Instant Challenge -- they said they did "fine," really, really good, and "we did great"   So it sounds like they did just fine :-)

So proud....

I'm a little late in posting the last couple days events.    Let's start with the non-DI events.  

When we left the huge opening ceremonies we had to wait for our bus route to get us back to our hotel.   We finally got to the front of the line and they needed to load a woman with a scooter and her team.  The wheelchair lifts are on the front of the buses.   Our boys stood patiently and waited for the bus driver to get the woman settled, bring up the lift and tell us to board.  While we were waiting, two other teams pushed past us and on to the bus and pushed past the group trying to get the scooter situated.   The boys waited until they were told to board and they had really mad looks on their faces.  They whispered among themselves about how rude it was -- the parents were so proud!  Then the next day on another bus, a bunch of little girls (3rd graders) boarded and the bus was full so they would have stand up.  The  bus driver started giving instructions on how to hang on to the girls and instantly our team stood up and gave up all their seats for the girls.  The bus driver was so impressed that he thanked them and when it came to our "stop," he dropped us at our hotel instead of the bus stop.   Our little boys are growing up into fine young men!


Jeanne

What I learned today

Today was my 1st time pin trading.I really like pin trading.I like a whole bunch of pins,here are some of them:I like the Califonia Dragons and Motorcycles. I also like the Avengers and Hunger Games sets, and the pheonix pins.here is a picture of Dr.Frank the pin trading guru











By Max

Opening Ceremonies

Opening ceremonies are awesome! First they had a country and state march. Then they had a looooong boring speech about brains and the human body. During the speech they some videos about Globals in past years. after the speech they turned the lights and had a awesome light show with fireworks, videos, and many many light swords, and light up styrofoam.

by. Zack