I haven't been very involved with FIRST this year, so it was only recently that I found out 971 was part of the championship alliance. This is very gratifying but not at all surprising. Team 971 is rock solid in part because of the participation of the Schuh family. Mike Schuh is a NASA Ames engineer. his dad was an engineer and I suspect his three sons will be engineers. I first met this family in 2000, when Mike invited me to his house. His entire family was involved (no not involved) committed to FLL. No TV in the house - just kids doing robots for fun. It was like a real life Dexter's Lab- except the kids weren't nerdy.

The Los Altos Community Robotics team has been continuously cleaning up at Botball and FLL events for years. There is just smart and then there is scary smart. These guys go beyond scary smart.