During Phase II of the Mill Yard Project, fellow NELUG member Matt Wagner and I were fortunate enough to meet with Marie Claude and Paul Roy of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) who invited us down to Atlanta Georgia to be judges for the 2005 FIRST LEGO League's World Finals at the Georgia Dome and World Congress Center.  It's a Robotics competition where kids 8-16 from all around the world not only show off their building and presentation skills, but even more importantly display the highest levels of "Gracious Professionalism" throughout the three day event.  This year, 73 teams represented finalists from countries such as South Africa, Turkey, Korea, China, Japan, Switzerland, Brazil, the Netherlands, Mexico and Germany as well as regional winners here in the states.  This was such a high-level event that the owner of the LEGO Company Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen and and his new CEO Jorgen Knudstorp personally flew to the event from Denmark to congratulate the winners.  The entire event was over-the-top amazing.  We got to meet with Kjeld and Jorgen as well as Soren, who is developing the next generation of Mindstorms at MIT, Jeff James, the Corporate Community Relations Manager for LEGO, several LEGO marketing people, Jim Hicks who is the Chief Engineer for Boeing and Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway human transporter.  This year's Director's Award went to Team 9 from the Boys and Girls Club of Maryland, USA.  Next year's theme is Ocean Odyssey and you'll be sure that I'll be back for more fun!