The Final Post

I lost track of the writing blogs on our last couple of meetings. The team had a flurry of activity leading up to state. During the last two meetings they added two original songs to their sound affects along with a live trumpet performance. They had rehearsals where they tried to put this all together but in all honesty they never really had a rehearsal where they had every element put together and perfected.

The afternoon before state some of the St. Bernard people traveling to state met in the school parking lot, decorated cars, and caravaned to the hotel we stayed at in Wisconsin Rapids. At the hotel that night we had a banquet room with pizza and salad and everyone enjoyed some camaraderie. Team 1 had an early performance which meant leaving the hotel around 6:30am. We arrived in Stevens Point with plenty of time to get a great parking spot, the gear was quickly unloaded. The facility was very nice with a great prep area just outside the performance room. This gave the team plenty of room to assemble the hive, repair damage to the pieces of grass, get their costumes on, and do a little bit of meditating (it's become a team tradition!).

The time passed quickly and before we knew it it was time to hand over the paperwork, answer the litany of silly questions, and get ready to move into the "launch" area. The team was then introduced and the show began. You can view the video at the link below but suffice it to say the team put together an amazing performance. Things went off without a hitch, the crowd and appraisers were into it, the timing on the sound affects was great, no lines were forgotten, and the pheromones were released as sucessfully as I've seen them. Even the grand finale had more impact than usual (ask Ben if you don't believe me, see the video it is hilarous), and portions of the crowd jumped to their feet when time was called.

After watching this performance take shape over the course of the season and watching many rehearsals this was by far the best it's been, up until this point the regional tournament had been the best performance; the team outdid itself at State.

The team had an interesting Instant Challenge. The team left the IC feeling bad about their performance, I can't go into details but at the last second something happened that in the eyes of the appraisers caused them to lose nearly all of the points they had gained. In the "chill out room" where the team goes to talk amongst themselves about the IC they decided that the appraisers had erred in their judgment. They asked if they could talk to someone. The people running the room agreed to contact the IC challenge master. In the meantime the team was led outside and introduced to the crowd (which was a cool touch) unfortunately the team was distracted kind of ruining this cool moment. They finally did get to talk to the challenge master and explained their interpretation of the rules and how they felt they may deserve more points than awarded. The challenge master agreed to review their situation and that they would find out when they received their final scores how it turned out. As of this writing we still haven't seen the final scores, they should be posted on line sometime soon.

Since the team was finished early they were able to view quite a few other performances and just hang out which was nice. Some members had to leave early but four were able to stay for the awards ceremony. There was a fraction of a second when the middle level Instinct Messaging places were being read where it seemed like a trip to Tenessee might be in our future. The first place team was "St." I don't know what they said next but it wasn't Saint Bernards.

So the season came to an end, but it was a great season, hopefully everyone had fun, I know I did!

Meeting #25 - 4/13/09

The team had a lot of fun tonight. They got some good work done with the pheromone emitter being tuned up, the Bee dancing instructions being redone in permanent marker, the evil Dermestes costume being made to look just a little more evil, and the hive getting the hot glue treatment to help hold it all together.

Much like the meetings leading up to the regional tournament the team attempted a couple of rehearsals, none of which were done cleanly. Then to have some fun they had to re-act the performance but with a different personality. I had them draw cards with names such as Brett Favre, Edward Cullen, Barack Obama, etc. on them. They then had to re-act their performance in that personality. The team had a lot of fun with this and wanted to do another round so they all picked their own charecter and I tried to guess who they were. It quickly broke down into mahem and time was running out so we opened the garage door and called it a night.

Meetings #23 & 24 - 4/12/09

I missed writing a blog from our meeting after the regional tournament so I'll do a combo blog. The first meeting after regionals the team came with a lot of great ideas to improve their overall solution to the challenge. We went shopping for some supplies to make Dermestes costumer a little more evil looking; other than that not much progress was made, one small step back was actually taken when an accident occurred and the bee hive got broken a bit. After this meeting I had the sense the team was a bit burnt out.

The second meeting after regionals went a bit better. The team made good progress on sprucing everything up, the flower stands and flowers were rebuilt so they can make the big trip to Stevens Point a little better, the hive was repaired and improved, and the pheromone emitter was reworked a bit for more dramatic results. The team also did a performance based instant challenge. They felt this was their weakest area, they think they are pretty good at task based challenges. The challenge I gave them was to pick a holiday which either didn't have a mascot (like the easter bunny or Santa Claus) or one that needed a new and improved mascot. They picked April Fools Day and the mascot was the April Fool. They put a nice story together where the April Fool went around playing tricks on a family including a sister, a sister who liked rocks, and a brother who thought he was a ninja. They did a nice job with this challenge and this usually is an area they struggle with.

We have a marathon of meetings this week to complete preperations for State.

That is all for now,

Mr. H.

The Regional Tournament - 4/4/09

The team started the day with a bright and early Instant Challenge at 8:30am. After signing in the team spent some time meditating in a circle (see the photo album if you don't believe me) then they went to wait to be called. I can't go into any details on the Instant Challenge itself but the team did very, very well on the challenge. They left the room bursting at the seams. After the challenge they take the team to a "chill out" room where they can talk as a team about the challenge. The team was pumped! They felt they did really well on the challenge and you could just sense the energy and enthusiasm they had from doing well. They were determined to carry this momentum into their main challenge at 10:30am.

After leaving the instant challenge it was time to unload and stage everything for the main challenge. The team had quite a bit of set pieces, props, and costumes to prepare. The list included a giant bee hive, three giant flowers, about 12 huge blades of grass, a sound system, a large newspaper, a huge flyswatter, the 6 legged evil Dermestes costumes, bee costumes, a queen bee costume, and a pheromone emitter. They got everything set up in plenty of time, got checked in and had plenty of time to wait for their challenge to start.

The challenge started and I am happy to say the team did by far their cleanest performance of their challenge they've ever done. No major lines were missed, there was some fun humor added in I haven't heard before and they successfully completed all of the main elements of the challenge.

It was nice being done early this allowed the team plenty of time to watch other teams perform and relax. The awards ceremony was late to start due to some scoring issues on another challenge. It was very exciting when the results were read for Middle Level Challenge B. The team ended up placing second which earns them the opportunity to go to the State Tournament in Stevens Point in two weeks. So the season and the blog continues. Stay tuned...

Meeting #22 - 4/3/09

The team had their final meeting before the regional tournament. They did two full performances, neither quite perfect, especially since I had to read for Grant since he was not feeling well (I made most of the mistakes). The team then packed up everything and loaded my van and the Warpinski's van. Tomorrow we start bright and early with the teams instant challenge at 8:30am.

Meeting #21 - 4/2/09

We'll call this the "wing" meeting. The bees all made their wings, check out the photo album to see some of the action. The final piece of the hive was also put together. Now they just have to load it all up Friday night, unload it, set it up, and perform.

The team did several rehearsals which were interesting. Hopefully we worked a lot of the bugs out because we had scenery falling down, people completely freezing and forgetting their lines, and running over the allotted time.

One sound affect was also added, the sound of a crowd cheering is added to the list of bees buzzing, birds chirping, chainsaws, and crickets. I'm sure you are wondering how all of these sounds are used in their performance; well you'll find out Saturday!

Meeting #20 - 3/31/09

We had a small group for this meeting. We took the opportunity to do an instant challenge. The team had to creatively move a concrete block using a variety of objects. They couldn't simply pick up the block and move it and they needed to create a story about why they were moving it. See the pictures for the team in action.

We also worked on the lines for one the scenes we've had the most trouble with. This scene is when Kilroy the outcast bee and Dermestes the evil enemy of bugs everywhere first meet. After multiple tries at it I think the lines for that scene are now down pat.

Some work was also done on the bee costumes which honestly haven't gotten much attention so far. Stripes are cut for most of the costumes and a plan is in place to make wings for all of the bees.

Two more meetings and then tournament!