We were going to exclude kids from the state and public forum debate if we stayed with intelligent design. Some schools were afraid parents wouldn't allow their kids to do this one.

It was a decision forced by the minority. But we didn't want to exclude any students, no matter how few.

(He) said he had a number of fundamentalists on his doorstep. The topic just came out. We only have 15 coaches in North Dakota, and I have all their e-mail addresses. I decided to send them a little note to see what they thought.

Each group of kids use their own creative initiative to figure out how to engineer and design the robot to fulfill the requirements of the challenge.

I look at your design, and I'm just not getting it,

It has a kind of artsy, flamboyant look to it. Now it's taking traditional design and going over the edge with it. Instead of a skull with a dagger through it, you'll see an exploding skull with a dagger through it.