[GaryVoshol]

Team 1025 has taken an alternative path. We became acquainted with some students in South Africa (RSA) several years ago, through mentors' common interest in LEGO Early Robotics for young elementary ages. Since it would be incredibly difficult and expensive to create a team in RSA, students there are members of 1025. We communicate via email and Skype. They handle some tasks there, while we build the competition robot here. This season they built a practice robot there with some old parts that were sent to them. 7 team members came to Michigan last week, and have been participating in cultural exchange in our schools and learning more about robots from a 2-year-old robot we had on hand. We will travel together to Atlanta this week. FIRST has a large LEGO League presence in RSA, but currently a FRC program would not be sustainable. Until that becomes possible, we will continue to pursue the intercontinental teamwork path.