Several awards were announced, with polite applause in response from those gathered in a classroom of the University of Missouri Agriculture Engineering Building.
Then, a louder cheer went up when Army Ants was announced as the winner of the 2021 Global Innovation Design Award in the FIRST Robotics Competition. Army Ants is a youth robotics team, but this competition went beyond the realm of robotics.
The FIRST Global Innovation Awards featured teams from the United States, Mexico, France, Brazil, India, Norway, Israel and Tunisia. The awards presentation was online, and Army Ants team members, mentors and guests viewed from a large screen in the classroom.