Sitting in Changi Airport

Jared here again, logging on one last time before I hop on the plane back to the Western world.

Last night at the hotel we had an unexpected visit from all of the teachers and students that we saw here in Singapore, and it was with many a wet eye that we said our farewells. They gave us one last basket of fruit, a myriad of gifts for all of the students, and final hugs.

I've been international several times now, and each time the trip is never quite what I was expecting. In this case, it was orders of magnitude better than my wildest predictions. Yes, we showed our robot to "oohs" and "ahhs", and in the process inspired hundreds of Singaporean school children to look into robotics and engineering, but two other things I wasn't expecting happened.

First, our team's own passion was ignited. The students who went with us don't want to leave; they were so impressed by the level of technology taught here that even those who haven't been on the technical crew in the past have voiced a desire to pursure build this season, and later engineering. The teachers were re-inspired by what they saw in the classroom, and will take those lessons home.

Second, and more importantly, we became friends with the students here. E-mail addresses, screennames, and phone numbers changed hands - my one lasting memory above all else will be when we were leaving one of the schools and Gina, a Singaporean students, shouted to our student Kate, "I love you Kate!"

We flew around the world, inspired the locals and ourselves, and left with friendships and love. How cool is that?