The book you’re holding would never have been possible without the hard work of the team at No Starch Press. Bill Pollock, the founder of No Starch and developmental editor for this book, made sure our chapters were coherent and well organized. Megan Dunchak, our production manager, did a wonderful job keeping everything moving as planned, as well as helping with editing. Riley Hoffman made our pictures, screen captures, and graphics presentable. We’d also like to give a special acknowledgment to Derek Yee for creating the nice cover images for our book.

A big thank you also goes to our families and friends who helped and supported the project. Jonathan’s parents helped review chapters and provide information from their experiences (Jonathan’s mom is an FLL coach). Jim is grateful for the help provided by the talented Atlanta LEGO® MINDSTORMS® network, including LEGO Education representative Kristie Brown, Mischa Holt (http://www.yesgeorgia.com/), Mary Roberts, Rick Folea (http://www.forsythfll.com/), Rayshun Dorsey (http://www.wizkidztech.org/), and Jeff Rosen.

We’d also like to acknowledge our fellow contributors to The NXT STEP blog (http://thenxtstep.com/). They were quick to help whenever we needed opinions on many topics and always provided encouragement to keep moving forward. A special salute goes to Dave Parker, who was especially helpful with providing some of the pictures for the book.

Gratitude is also extended to Dean Kamen and everyone at the FIRST organization. We’d especially like to thank Anna Maenhout, Ernie DiCicco, Kim Martineau, and Noriko Morin for their assistance.

Finally, we’d like to thank all the FLL members and teams out there who sent us comments about their experiences in FLL and have participated in our blog’s discussion forums. You’ll find their advice and tips scattered throughout the book.