Blogs

OVERVIEW OF NATIONALS PRESENTATION & JUDGING
As a reminder, each team will be given a 5foot table to set up its prototype and any accompanying presentation boards. Any presentation display should support your toy and help tell the story of its creation. Space around your table may be very limited, particularly at the sides. Plan your display to show key elements in the development of your creation, with your toy or game as its centerpiece.

The judging timetable (always subject to change, so your team should be ready to be flexible) is for each team to make a nine-minute presentation to one group of judges (including judge Q+A time). Please refer to your coach handbook for specifics about the judging criteria—these are what the judges will be looking for in your presentation. Also, be ready to answer questions about your toy or game and your design process. We recommend that you practice giving your presentation to parents, friends and classmates so you can get feedback about what is most effective and also work out some of those nerves!

PRACTICING YOUR PRESENTATION
We're sure you'll be busy preparing and practicing your presentation for the judges at this time. Remember that, in the short amount of time you have, it is vital that your team be the ones doing the talking! As a coach, you'll also be excited and eager to discuss the great experiences you have had guiding the team...however the judges are looking for what the team, not the coach, can tell them and will grade the presentation accordingly.

WE’RE GLAD YOU’RE COMING
Thank you to everyone who sent their Attendance Confirmation Forms and (where applicable) Travel Assistance Application forms to us before the deadline. We’re very pleased that so many of you are coming – it’s going to be a great final!

Please remember that April 21th 2008 is the deadline for notifying us of power, water, and any other special requests that your team may have (anything that cannot be accommodated on a 5 to 6-foot table with very limited surrounding area). We may not be able to help you with these needs after that date.

We need your Pictures and Toy Descriptions!
We would like every team to send us some digital pictures of their toy/game and team for a National slideshow. Please fill out the form below (which will also be placed on the TOYchallenge site under the forms page) and send it back to us with your Team ID, Team Name, Toy Name, and short 2-3 sentence description of your toy/game. These will be due April 28th, 2008. We will also give these to the judges at the National Competition.

THERE’S NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT...
...to begin working on your presentation to the judges! Following your team presentation, the judges will very likely wish to ask questions about your toy or game, your team, your design process, your logbook… you name it! Now would be a good time to review the judging criteria found in the coach handbook.

Teams have 9 minutes total for their presentation. Please allow 7-8 minutes for your actual presentation and 1 minute for Judges Q&A.

Another Earth Day came and went this year and one thing stayed the same: Most Americans still aren’t overly worried about climate change.

Just 37 percent say they worry a great deal about it—a fraction that's barely budged from the 35 percent who said so nearly two decades ago, according to Gallup Inc.'s annual environmental poll.

That got me worried. Then my worry turned to guilt. And that guilt, as guilt often does, turned to a real hankering for some pizza.

Later, a takeout pizza, much to my relief, didn't turn into anything other than a tasty meal.

As for the cardboard box it came in, that's another story. It turned into a real eye-opener.

See, the pizza box was one of the best examples I'd seen in a long time of the neglected second of the three R's—you know, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

On the outside, the box was plain cardboard brown. Inside, it was a riot of color. It seemed fishy, though fruity was more like it. Here and there, I could make out an off-register picture of an apple.

It took unfolding the box—and a moment or two—before I could figure it out. My pizza box was made of juice boxes—or rather, four or so flattened juice boxes stamped on a single sheet of cardboard.

Of course, the juice boxes—which aren't an environmentally-smart choice in the first place—never had held juice. They hadn't even been punched out and shaped into individual boxes. The sheet of cardboard was a printer's goof—a misprint. The blurry pictures of apples made that clear.

I'd like to recant what I said a few posts ago about my backyard not being the place to cut global warming. Looking back, it's now clear I missed the peas for the forest.

I still maintain that reforesting my backyard would barely dent my overall emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. I just couldn't plant enough trees. But sinking some peas—and tomatoes and carrots and zucchini—into the soil just might do some real good.

That would mean recycling a concept that's nearly a century old: planting a victory garden.

Victory gardens first took root during World War I and blossomed anew during World War II. The government promoted the homegrown vegetable patches to free up additional resources for the war effort. Having ordinary citizens grow more of the food they ate also engaged them in that effort.

By 1943, there were 20 million victory gardens under cultivation, producing an estimated 40 percent of the nation's fresh vegetables, according to the Department of Agriculture.

I have seen a flurry of recent media coverage about a revived interest in victory gardens. Nothing I have read suggests it has anything to do with the war. (Unless you’re talking about the battle of the bulge: increasingly overweight Americans eat on average just 1.7 cups of veggies a day, or less than the recommended 2.5 cups.) Instead, this time around, it's all about the environment.

That's because every bushel of veggies harvested from a backyard garden is another bushel that didn’t have to hop on a truck, train or plane to make it to your kitchen door. That means cutting out a farm-to-fork trip that, for fresh produce, averages about 2,400 kilometers (1,500 miles), according to one widely quoted estimate.

One of the pleasures of parenthood—and it must the same for teaching—is the wonderful excuse it provides to dip back into one’s favorite books from childhood. For me, Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends is one of those books.

I happily rediscovered my copy recently, 30 years after receiving it, while browsing the shelves for something to read to our young son. I quickly alighted on an old favorite, “Lazy Jane.”

 If you’ve never read the poem or don’t remember it, Lazy Jane wants a drink of water, so she “waits and waits and waits for it to rain.” In Silverstein’s accompanying drawing, there Jane lies, flat on her back, her mouth open to the sky.

Of course, we can’t be like Jane. Relying on gravity to drop rain in our parched mouths just isn’t practical or feasible.

Instead, it’s much easier to tilt back our heads to take a swig of water. More and more, that water comes from a bottle.

Worldwide, we guzzle more than 175 billion liters (46 billion gallons) of bottled water a year, according to recently published tallies. Since one-liter and half-liter bottles are fairly standard, I have to think all that water comes packaged in a comparable number of bottles.

Recently, I saw first-hand where some of those bottles end up—and no, it wasn’t a clean, well-lighted recycling center. It was a small but fast-flowing river in Eastern Europe. Here’s a picture I took.

Earlier in the day, I’d been to the river’s pristine source, below a medieval monastery just 16 kilometers (10 miles) upstream. From there, the river snaked down a narrow valley, flowing past at least two impromptu garbage dumps and an abandoned trout farm.

ATTENDANCE CONFIRMATION FORM REMINDER

We ask that every team attending Nationals complete and return the Nationals Attendance Confirmation form so we know how many people are attending Nationals.

The form can be found online at: http://www.sallyridescience.com/toychallenge/coaches/forms. Please fax this form to us at (858)638-1419 or email to toychallenge2008@sallyridescience.com.

Deadline to turn in National Attendance Confirmation form is April 14th, 2008.

Until we receive these forms, we are not able to make the final schedule for the day.

TRAVEL ASSISTANCE
Thank you to everyone who sent in their travel assistance forms with such clear explanations of why help is needed. We are very pleased that we were able to help so many teams, and proud that some of you are overcoming some very tough circumstances to give your team this opportunity. The deadline has now passed for travel assistance applications. and we have distributed all of our Southwest Green Passes

HOTEL INFORMATION

Don’t forget to make your hotel reservations by Thursday April 17th. They are quickly filling up and with the busy spring/summer season in San Diego, we don’t want anyone to be left out on the streets!

Best Western Seven Seas
411 Hotel Circle South
San Diego, CA 92108
Reservations 800-328-1618

$124 per night
http://www.bw7seas.com/

For all other hotel suggestions in San Diego please call Michael Hall at the Sa/an Diego Concierge office at: 800 979-9091

ATTENDANCE CONFIRMATION FORM REMINDER

We ask that every team attending Nationals complete and return the Nationals Attendance Confirmation form so we know how many people are attending Nationals.

The form can be found online at: http://www.sallyridescience.com/toychallenge/coaches/forms. Please fax this form to us at (858) 638-1419 or email to toychallenge2008@sallyridescience.com.

Deadline to turn in National Attendance Confirmation form is April 14th, 2008.

Until we receive these forms, we are not able to make the final schedule for the day.

TRAVEL ASSISTANCE

Thank you to everyone who sent in their travel assistance forms with such clear explanations of why help is needed. We are very pleased that we were able to help so many teams, and proud that some of you are overcoming some very tough circumstances to give your team this opportunity. The deadline has now passed for travel assistance applications. and we have distributed all of our Southwest Green Passes.

HOTEL INFORMATION

Don’t forget to make your hotel reservations by Thursday April 17th. They are quickly filling up and with the busy graduation season in the DC area, we don’t want anyone to be left out on the streets!

The Westin Grand
2350 M St. NW
Washington, D.C.
(202) 429-0100

Special Announcements

TOYchallenge 2008 T-Shirt

Pre-order your 2008 TOYchallenge T-shirt $15! Purchase now for your team, coach, family and friends by going to our Sally Ride Science Store.

National Coach Forum

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding the Nationals competition, please use the Coaches forum. This way new coaches and past coaches will be able to help each other and their teams. It will also help the TOYchallenge staff answer questions that many teams may have.

ATTENDANCE CONFIRMATION FORM

We ask that every team attending Nationals complete and return the Nationals Attendance Confirmation form so we know how many people are attending Nationals.

The form can be found online at: http://www.sallyridescience.com/toychallenge/coaches/forms. Please fax this form to us at (858)638-1419 or email to toychallenge2008@sallyridescience.com. Deadline to turn in the form is April 14th, 2008.

Until we receive these forms, we are not able to make the final schedule for the day.

FUNDRAISING

PREPARING FOR THE WEST COAST NATIONALS

CONGRATULATIONS on making it to the final round of TOYchallenge!! You should have received your E-mail letting you know that your team has advanced to Nationals in San Diego (please let us know if you didn't receive it). If you have not already confirmed receipt of your confirmation, please make sure you do so right away!

WEST COAST NATIONALS

May 31st 2008 – Qualcomm Stadium, San Diego CA

Airport Information:
San Diego International Airport (SAN):  www.san.org

ATTENDANCE CONFIRMATION
Your attendance confirmation form is due in our office by 5:00pm Pacific Standard time on Monday, April 14th, 2008.  Click here for the form.    

HOTELS
We have secured special TOYchallenge rates for a limited number of rooms that are on a first come, first served basis.  So if you wish, make your room reservations as soon as possible, while they last!

West Coast:
Best Western Seven Seas
411 Hotel Circle South
San Diego, CA 92108
Reservations 800-328-1618
$124 per night
http://www.bw7seas.com/

For all other hotel suggestions in San Diego please call Michael Hall at the San Diego Concierge office at:

800 979-9091

FROM PRE TO NATIONALS
The time before Nationals is prime time for taking your design to the next level and seeing the team’s vision become a reality!

Here are some things to consider:

PREPARING FOR THE EAST COAST NATIONALS

CONGRATULATIONS on making it to the final round of TOYchallenge!! You should have received an email letting your team know it has advanced to Nationals (please let us know if you didn’t receive it). If you have not already confirmed receipt of this email, do so right away! Thanks.

EAST COAST NATIONALS

May 17th 2008 – United States Patent and Trademark Office, Alexandria VA

Airport Information:

Washington, D.C. (Dulles): www.metwashairports.com/Dulles

Baltimore International Airport (BWI): www.bwiairport.com

ATTENDANCE CONFIRMATION

Your attendance confirmation form is due in our office by 5:00pm Pacific Standard time on Monday, April 14th, 2008. Click here for the form.

HOTELS

We have secured special TOYchallenge rates for a limited number of rooms that are on a first come, first served basis. So if you wish, make your room reservations as soon as possible, while they last!

East Coast:

The Westin Grand
2350 M St. NW
Washington, D.C.
(202) 429-0100
$199 per night, book by April 15 2008
For more information, Click [Here].