This tale began many months ago, back to August of 2013. School was starting once again for the kids and for me. For the fourth year in a row this also brought the Lilly Teacher Creativity Fellowship grant application I cannot tell you how the application or the idea popped into my mind at that time, but it did and there started my fourth attempt to gain membership to that exclusive club or grant recipients.
This year I decided to try a new grant proposal, one that I had been thinking about for a while (a different story altogether), creating my own R2-D2. This was my best chance to get a grant from Lilly with my current placement on the committee for iPads in the classroom, team members that included the assistant superintendent of HSE, and my current principal being a former Lilly Grant recipient. Receiving three very flattering recommendation letters, the application was ready and sent off early, which for anyone that knows me is a major accomplishment. Now the wait and the forgetting.
This year, different from the other times I had tried, I was determined to forget all about the grant and not really talk about it. Call it superstitious, call it hokey, I really wanted to give the application every chance of making it this time. I completely forgot about the grant until a good friend and mentor, Barb Huff, wrote me a surprising email on Monday, February 24th. She said congrats on the grant and that she had gotten one too. I was completely dumbfounded when I read the email. I shot one back immediately stating, "WHAT!?! The Lilly grant? I got my grant?"
We talked on the phone a little while later and caught up with the story of what had just happened. Barb told me that she had been stalking her mailbox for a week and then Saturday the large envelope came for her, she had won a grant with another teacher for a trip to Europe. The letter has stated that the winners would be
posted online Monday for press release. She say my name along with hers on the recipients and shot me the email. She was extremely apologetic for not letting me find the letter myself, I told her we are notorious for not checking the mail every day, but I told her it was even more special to find out through her.
After the initial shock wore off and the reality set in (and getting my letter out of the weekend mail :), I kick-started the research I had been doing over the past few years into the process of building an R2 droid. I started by contacting two "vendors" (I don't exactly know what to call them, maybe fabricators is more appropriate) that I had emailed back in August for pricing for my original budget. They both wrote back quickly with some congratulations and questions about what the plan was going to be. This is where the stress level being to brew.
Over the next five days, I stalked Astromech.net for info about new runs (a run is when a fabricator is going to make an Astromech.net approved part again, these sometimes happen only once a year.) in both resin, a plastic based medium, and aluminum since this R2-M5 will made from those materials. This stressed me out even more because I was so unsure about whether I was actually going to be able to build a droid this year, let alone during the summer months.
I started writing some posts and personal messages on the website to see if I could get some help with parts and/or ideas. Two weekends ago I received three emails back from builders. One said he would make a frame for me, another gave me advice on skins, and a third got back to me about foot drives. On that Sunday I paid for the frame and received an email about a dome which I also paid for. That afternoon I checked the mail and found the check from Lilly as well. I love it when a plan comes together. Everything started working out.
Now I am in a holding pattern until parts start coming in and I can begin building. So until I have more to write about...May the Force be with You.
