Gift stuns Waialua robotics champs
By Will Hoover
Advertiser North Shore Writer
Tiny Waialua High School, winners of a regional robotics championship, will be going to the nationals at Walt Disney World's Epcot Center after all, thanks to a flurry of 11th-hour benefactors and some last-minute rule bending.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser
The school had won the regionals two years in a row, and though it raised enough money to make it to the contest, the nationals were financially out of reach.
Matthew Menor, left, Lyle Lopez, Joseph Gudoy and the rest of the Waialua High robotics team will have a chance to go the national robotics championship in Florida.
This year promised the same fate. After Waialua won the regionals March 30 in San Jose, Calif., the officials of the FIRST Robotics Regional Championship needed a commitment on the spot for the high school to travel April 25-27 to Orlando, Fla.
Lacking the $30,000 needed, Waialua school officials politely declined.
But Susan Harada, operations manager at Castle & Cooke Hawai'i, sprung into action after she read the team's story in The Advertiser Thursday.
Harada called Waialua High principal Aloha Coleman late Friday.
"What if Castle & Cooke can help you raise the money?" she said. "Is it really too late?"
Coleman made a hasty phone call to FIRST organizers in Manchester, N.H., and was told the organization would make an exception to the earlier deadline.
"They said, 'If you can get everything organized by Monday, you are more than welcome to join us,' " Coleman said.
So while Coleman and crew feverishly began making last-minute travel arrangements, Harada hit the phones with a vengeance.
Castle & Cooke pledged a third of the necessary money, while a dozen other corporations and businesses made pledges for most of the rest.
Meanwhile, Waialua children and teachers vowed to sell 2,000 chili tickets at four North Shore locations to make up the difference.
Terry Lopez, an engineer, mentor and father of two team members, said rumors began circulating on Friday that a trip to the nationals might be in the works after all.
"We heard bits and pieces," he said.
But it wasn't until team coordinator Ted Nagata called a special meeting of team members and advisors Sunday at the school that everyone knew for sure.
"I could see their eyes light up when I made the announcement" said Nagata, who picked up a check from Castle & Cooke yesterday morning for the airline tickets.
"I was very excited and shocked," said team member Teri Lopez, 16. "I couldn't believe people could be so kind. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for us."
Said Ashley Visaya, 17, another team member: "Waialua is such a small school that at first I found it hard to believe. It's hard for us to get the money to go to California for the regionals. With our capabilities, I'm sure we might be able to win at the nationals."
Coleman, who on Monday contacted FIRST to say the team would be coming to Florida, said, "I feel like my phone is attached to my head — it's just been one phone call after another. This has just been unreal."
"Where there's a will there's a way," Harada said. "They're going! And these kids really deserve to go. We just needed to see what we could do."
Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8038.
