This weekend was the Duel on the Delaware and Miracle of Education Book Drive. Eight years ago, John Larock of First State Robotics (a part of the FIRST organization) invited Success Won’t Wait to become a part of this annual event as a community service element to the establish robotics competition.
For anyone not familiar with FIRST, this is a truly amazing organization. Founded by Dean Kamen (inventor of the infamous Segway) this nationwide non-profit teaches kids about robotics, engineering, teamwork and competition. Led by adult volunteers and engineers, local teams are comprised of high school students who design, construct and ultimately compete with large scale, working robots.
Our part of the competition is the annual book drive. Each competition hosts between 15 – 30 teams (in our case all from the East Coast). Throughout the year, the teams collect used books from family, friends, churches, schools and more. They bring these on competition day to be weighed (they are budding engineers, after all!) and counted.
The friendly rivalry sometimes gets a little tense as the numbers are tallied and a 1st runner up and a winner are announced and trophies are presented. The winner and 1st runner-up receive, in addition to bragging rights for the year, a cash prize from Success Won’t Wait, gift certificates from the event’s hosting team MOE 365, games from McNeill Designs, and of course, a shiny new trophy!
This year, through the drive, we collected almost 4,000 lbs. of books! These teams really work so hard and we want to give them a huge thank you for their efforts! This year, the finalists were:
WINNER: Team 3151
1ST RUNNER UP: Team 375
A big thank you, too to the other teams who competed and collected thousands more lbs. of beautiful books for our literacy projects.
Founded in 2002, Success Won’t Wait, Inc. is a 501c3 non-profit literacy organization based in Wilmington, Delaware. Want to learn more about Success Won’t Wait’s literacy projects, how to donate used books, or volunteer your time? Simply visit About Success Won’t Wait.
Success Won't Wait! 