{"id":22271,"date":"2025-04-16T14:14:38","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T20:14:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=22271"},"modified":"2025-04-16T14:14:38","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T20:14:38","slug":"positivity-prowess-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/16\/positivity-prowess-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Positivity + Prowess = Victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Funds still needed to get teams to Texas<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

BY Jennifer Liebrum<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
The Wood River Middle School Intergalactic team members: Jake Blacker, Jesse Green, Hiram Johnson, JasperPotts. Photo credit: Jeremy Silvis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Blaine County Bots, Idaho\u2019s first K-12 robotics program has represented the state at national finals competitions numerous times over the last 20 years. This year, for the first time ever, elementary students will represent the Blaine County School District too.
\nAt the Idaho State VEX IQ Robotics Championship, tech teacher Krista Jones\u2019 Bellevue Elementary team won the Elementary Excellence Award, and tech teacher Jeremy Silvis\u2019 Wood River Middle School won the Middle School Excellence Award. Both of these teams will be traveling to Dallas, Texas for the World Robotics International Tournament in May where they will compete separately.
\nEach team had to create, calculate, diagram, design and build a working robot. The categories the teams were judged on included their teamwork, robot matches against other teams, code programming ability and driving skills.
\n\u201cThe whole team is new to competitive robotics, but they really put their hearts into it,\u201d said Jones, Bellevue Elementary\u2019s coach. \u201cThese are amazing kids and their learning, growth and personal drive is impressive. They kept telling me that \u2018we\u2019re going to WORLDS! Even when they just barely started in the fall. It makes me so happy that they made it happen!
\n\u201cThe kids have worked incredibly hard all year learning all of the engineering, science, math and coding that it takes to build a working robot, and just as important, the care it takes to grow a working team.\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m grateful for this team and my coach, Ms. J,\u201d shared Bellevue Bear Bella Scout Bower. \u201cMy job is programming and that is what I work on all the time. How to drive a robot, how to build some of the robot, how to take notes, photography. I have learned how to build a relationship with my team forever.\u201d
\nTeammate Harper Wemhaner agreed.
\n\u201cI have learned so much during Vex IQ to me it\u2019s not just about winning, it\u2019s about having the experience of doing it. My team is the best and my coach Ms. J has done so much.\u201d
\nBot Isaiah Torres said he learned perseverance from working with Jones.
\n\u201cWe made many mistakes, but that\u2019s okay because it helped us do better and helped us go to worlds,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had some bad times and some good times, but the best times were to hang out.\u201d
\nBrower\u2019s mom, Tara Bell, added, \u201cI\u2019m incredibly proud of Mrs. J for all of her hard work and dedication, and for giving the kids confidence to dream big and work hard. The kids have worked so hard and they are traveling together as a team. I couldn\u2019t be more proud.\u201d
\nJones, a legend in the district for innovative programming for nearly four decades, is retiring this year after 36 years.
\n\u201cIt will be such a wonderful experience for them to not only test themselves against international teams, but to meet and collaborate with other kids from all around the world,\u201d Jones said. \u201cI\u2019m extra super excited that I can share this excitement with them! It\u2019s a fabulous way to end a fun and rewarding career.
\nAnyone interested in donating to either team can email kjones@blaineschools.org or jsilvis@blaineschools.org to learn more.<\/p>\n

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Funds still needed to get teams to Texas BY Jennifer Liebrum The Blaine County Bots, Idaho\u2019s first K-12 robotics program has represented the state at national finals competitions numerous times over the last 20 years. This year, for the first time ever, elementary students will represent the Blaine County School District too. At the Idaho […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":479,"featured_media":22273,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22271","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"category-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/479"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22274,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22271\/revisions\/22274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}