Meeker Plungers Win 3rd Place at Globals!

Competing against 73 other elementary teams from around the globe, your Meeker Plungers took home 3rd place in the world! The difference was the Instant Challenge portion of the competition. When exiting the Instant Challenge (where only the coach can watch), the coach, Dr. Merchant, said they did great. The team when exiting said they did "OK, well maybe, good." When results came in, they had the top instant challenge score for their area -- so maybe, they did better than "OK."

The team has done a great job preparing for their challenges (and did great in the pin trading arena also!). The competition is over, the final party is done (and what a cool party that was - more in a later post) and the kids are supposed to be sleeping.

The families will be starting their journeys home tomorrow, some flying home, some driving. All should be back for school on Tuesday.

Thanks to all our friends, family, teachers and community supporters, we couldn't have done it without you!

Posted by an exhausted parent - 12:38 am

P.S. Shaking parent hands took this picture, we'll have better ones soon.

Main Challenge Update

The Meeker DI team performed it's main challenge this morning. Leading up to the event, the team fixed any flaws for the car and props. We had to report about 2 hours before we performed and go through check-in and measurement of props. Despite some flaws we stayed calm and finished the performance with decent marks. Two hours later we received our raw scores. The scores were good but as usual we were hoping for better. Comments from the judges were excellent and comments from the audience members were also great. Many people stopped us at the lunch area and commented on how cool our performance was.

Tonight we are going to support the team from Brazil, who we are hosting. They were nice enough to come to our performance and cheer us on. The Ames High School DI team also came to our performance and really cheered us on (with actual cheers from the audience before we began).

Today we also participated in the Nutrition Challenge and visited the top of the Sunsphere. Later tonight we have many options and are still thinking about how much energy our parents have to accompany us. The parents seem to be getting tired -- but we aren't!

Posted by Andrew and Aaron

Busy Days and Nights in Knoxville

Greetings from Knoxville!

The Meeker DI Team has been busy. They have been pin trading, playing at the registration area on inflatables, pin trading, eating, pin trading, did I mention pin trading? Pin trading is a MAJOR event at Globals. More photos are coming of pin trading. Look at the group of kids (and adults)surrounding Jacob trying to get one of the sought after Iowa Jellyfish pins -- a very hot commodity here in Knoxville.

Wednesday night was opening ceremonies and our coach, Dr. Merchant and one team member participated in the entry walk (think Olympic opening ceremonies with each state and country parading in). Chase Wingate was our team member in the parade. The opening ceremonies included the parade of countries and states, presentations and award for the 25th anniversary video "What is DI?" Did you know that the Ames High DI team had their video in the top 5 of the world!? The Ames High team did their central (big) challenge this morning at 8:36 a.m. and most of the Meeker Plungers were there to cheer them on. The team doesn't have internet access in their rooms and it is a crazy time for them, so I'm posting what I know and will hopefully get more photos from other parents soon.

On Thursday, the unpacked their props (and fixed a few), tested their car and watched some other performances. Most of the team participated in an extracurricular training called "Overdrive" that focused on teamwork, creativity and engineering and possibly more pin trading. Thursday evening found some of them at the optional "costume ball" with live music and some interesting costumes. Our team has "jellyfish" hats (courtesy of Aaron) to go with our Jellyfish pins and t-shirts.

Tomorrow is BIG day #1 -- their Central Challenge with their car, props and story. Our performance time is 10:42 a.m. We have to meet around 8:30 at the challenge area to prepare and then the team will watch some performances and cheer on the team we are hosting from Brazil in the afternoon.

Have a great day!

Jeanne posting from Knoxville.

We are an International Ambassador Team!

We just found out that we are a host for a team from Brazil! We will be getting more information from the International Desk later today. This is going to be cool! (Does anyone know Portuguese?)


From Andrew (off to the Smoky Mountains today)

Checking in the Team

We checked in the team on Monday, the team is staying in Clement Hall (an older dorm). More to check on this morning. Pin trading has already started.

Posted by Andrew

Trip for Wiebkes

This is our third day so far,on the first day we saw the Gateway Arch in St.Louis. The second day we visited Mammoth Caves and took a 2 hour tour of a hole in the ground. We took the Historic tour, Jacob's favorite part was "Fat Man's Misery." The cave gets really small and adults have to duck and climb at the same time -- Jacob could just walk right through it. I even had to duck a couple of times to get through that area!

Today we plan on going to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, it is the largest freshwater aquarium in the world! After that we drive to Knoxville and switch to DI mode.

From Andrew

Keep Up with the Meeker DI Team as they travel to Knoxville

We've set a blog where the kids can post what they are doing in Knoxville and let all of you comment. It will be fun, so stop back for a daily update starting May 20th. Also check out the streaming video of the opening ceremonies at http://www.globalfinals.org/