Let the Competitions Begin

Today we got our first taste of what the competition will be like. We all headed to the convention center for a round of meetings. At the meetings the students got a chance to hear how their competitions will run. It is a lot of fun to see the students get more excited as the competition approaches. They have all been spending a lot of time preparing for this moment. As they said tonight - making it to Kansas City means they are the top 2% of the 300,000+ members across the United States.

The convention center is filled with not only places to compete but hundreds of exhibitors for the Techspo! So of course we managed to play some games and get some free suff. I picked up my race packet for the SkillsUSA 5k run - despite my best effort to convince someone - anyone to run with me - there are no takers from St. Clair TEC. Matt and Josiah were impressed with this set up in this car - however it's a little loud for my taste.

Then tonight was when we attended the official SkillsUSA opening ceremony at Kemper Arena. It was great - Michigan sits together - of course sporting our hunter orange foam antlers. The arena is rockin' when we get inside. There is an excitement you can just feel. It was fun to see what crazy things the other states were wearing - of course we spotted cheese heads from Wisconsin and Maine was wearing Lobster Hats - and of course Texas was sporting Cowboy hats. But words can't accurately describe the feeling - the rest of the post will be pictures. Plus it's late and we have an early morning tomorrow - as competition begins!!

Not sure if you can read it but some people had spinners that spelled out Michigan with LED lights - it was pretty cool!