Preparing for the Business Expo, Part 2: Mock Judging

OMG, this week!!  Mock Judging was Wednesday, and it was ka-raaaaa-zy!  We had to have everything done by Wednesday, and nobody thought they would make it.  We had to have our app judge-ready, the trifold board done, and our pitch presentation memorized.  Then, we set up in Mrs. Christidhis' room and had Ms. G and Mr. Gear and twenty million other people walk through and pretend to be judges.  We all dressed down and wore our white Startup Tech shirts.  There were about a thousand people in the room, and it was hot, and the WiFi was really slow, but we learned so much from practicing.

When we went through Mock Judging, some groups were ready, but then the judges found all kinds of things that needed to be fixed.  Everybody left with a to-do list.  Some groups had apps that didn't make sense, or their pitch was bad, so they had to fix all that.  Our group found out we were really behind when we saw what everyone else had gotten done, so we started working at home to catch up. My partner worked all weekend!  Mrs. Costello kept bothering everybody about their handshake.  We had to make eye contact and have a firm handshake, but it couldn't be too firm.  We had to practice until we got it right.  You can't get a job without a good handshake.

Everybody had little things to fix after Mock Judging, and there's only a week before the real Expo.  I wish we had worked harder earlier in the year so we weren't so far behind.  The judges hated our app and said it didn't solve a problem, so we had to re-do the whole app in a WEEK.