Hello, I’m Natalie Wallis, Marina’s 10-year old daughter. I am part of a FLL team with my brother, called The Masterminds. This is my second year participating in FLL, and my brother, Jacob’s, third. Last year the season was all about animals, and this year the theme is water.

There are many tournaments. The practice tournament, where teams might get awards, but always move on. The Qualifier, where some teams advance but others don’t. The regional, where the team that advance to the qualifier compete, and the champion of that tournament goes to the World Festival in either Houston, Texas or this year Detroit, Michigan.

Last season we were a team of five, and we advanced all the way to World Festival in Houston. But the other three decided it was too much of a time commitment, so it left just Jacob and I.

Just last week on Sunday October 29th at La Cañada High School, we went into our practice tournament with excitement. There was no champion’s awards availible there  but we did walk away with 1st place mechanical design and 1st place robot performance. It was sooo fun!

Yesterday at West Ranch High School, on November 5th (Jacob’s Birthday! 🙂 we went in again at around 7:30 in the morning feeling excited but very cold, and walked out with 1st place robot performance as well as Champion’s Award. So that means that in a month, on December 10th, we are competing at the regional and hopefully (crossing fingers) advancing to the regional.

At the qualifier, we got hotdogs and shaved ice. Yummy! Also, there was a dog adoption company there showing dogs up for adoption as well as selling things for dogs like collars and sweaters and such. Sadly I couldn’t adopt a dog because we already have 2 cats, but anyways I bought 2 packs of 4 bows for only $1 each pack! One pack for me, one for my BFF. I’m glad that I got to support those dogs, as all of the money goes to them! We even got in a radio article by KHTS! Here is the link:

West Ranch High School Host FIRST Lego League Qualifier Tournament For Los Angeles Region

I hope that we can continue to do well in our tournaments. All for now!