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Hello, everyone. Bob Mimlitch here from VEX Worlds, talking to some parents of students who are on a robot team. Can you tell me your name?

My name is Lora Jean.

Hi, Lora Jean, and your name?

I'm Payton.

This is your son.

This is my son, this is my baby.

Excellent, so, tell me a little bit about when you first found out your son wanted to be on a robot team.

I didn't have a clue. He just came home, "Hey, I signed up."

What is that? Right. Huh? Google was great.

Google's great, yeah. Google was great. Spent several hours that night figuring out what he just signed up for and I'm paying for.

Right, right, right. So has it changed his career, his life?

A whole lot. Tell me a little about that.

A little quiet kid who wasn't a big clique kid, wasn't a football kid, wasn't a baseball kid. He was a gamer and that's what he did.

Right, and now?

And now he's around everybody. The cool kids wanna join our teams. That is excellent. The football players, the track kids, they're wanting to be a part of robotics.

That's amazing, so we're talking to parents right now, so what would you tell a new parent whose son just came home or daughter just came home and said, "I'm on the robot team." What advice are you gonna give them?

Get on Facebook and join the Facebook pages. Join the community. Join the community because this is a huge community. When we needed parts at one point, I drove to Texas and met a lady and we got parts.

Oh wow.

And it's just amazing. If you have a problem, if the kids have a problem with a program, they get on their, I don't know what they get on, their groups and people help each other out. Kids from everywhere help each other out. It's not, as much of a competition this is, they're friends.

They're friends, right, they're not your enemies, they're your friends.

Right. That's amazing, so as a parent, now you know the journey your son has gone through, where do you think he's gonna go in life? What do you think the possibilities are?

They're endless.

Yeah.

There's so many careers and so many options that they can do. You honestly, especially for us, we're from a small town. We're not from New Orleans. We're not from Baton Rouge. We're from a small little town.

Louisiana.

Louisiana, but North Louisiana. It's a big difference. They can do anything.

That's amazing. So quick question for you. What was the most beneficial thing your mother did for you as a robot engineer? How did she help the most so that you can tell other parents what to do right?

I would guess just supporting me as much as she could would be the best part is what I think.

That's what parents are for, right?

Yeah.

That's amazing. Well, I think this was helpful. Parents, if your son or your daughter comes home and they say they wanna be on a robot team, that's a good thing.

Yes. Thank you all.

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