[Tom Ore]

A few thoughts on our trip:

Everyone we met was very kind, gracious and helpful - we made a lot of new friends. We had great food all week long. (Chopsticks at every meal – it was a good time.)

Our hotel was just a few minutes from the school that hosted us. There are 5,000 students at this school (4830’s school.) They are at the school from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM, six days a week and most of the year. They are interested in doing student exchange with us, although the schedule they keep may be a bit intimidating.

The teams were very interested in the topics we discussed and asked great questions.

We brought along mecanum wheels for our suitcase bot but were not sure we should show them. The class asked about mecanums so we made sure they understood the trade-offs and put the wheels on. They were a big hit.

We also brought along a small, fully self-contained pneumatic system that plugged into our suitcase bot. We weren’t sure if we should bring up pneumatics but the class asked, so we got the pneumatics board out and explained how everything worked.

We gave out team buttons and team posters from last year. We also brought along special dadalele / Swartdog T-shirtsand passed those out. 50+ Swartdog T-shirts will be seen around China!

We finished the week with a sightseeing trip to Hong Kong. The day ended with dinner aboard a ferry on a night cruise around Victoria Harbour with the amazing city lights of Hong Kong in the background.

We got to spend three days talking about FIRST, with people that were truly interested in what we had to say. (We posed for more photographs in three days than probably any of us ever have before!) We even signed a couple of autographs for people in the class.

It was such a good experience that it leaves me a bit philosophical: this all started with a chance encounter at Champs in 2012 with a parent sitting in a hallway making buttons. I guess the time to seize an opportunity is when it’s right there in front of you.

We leave in a few hours to go to the airport and fly back home. (I hope I can recover from the jet lag of the 14 hour time difference in time for kickoff!)