On Friday, us ThinkGeek Robo-monkeys were invited out to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology's freshman bot competition. We were there to judge the beauty bots, but mostly to hand out free goodies: Tribbles, R/C wall climbing cars, Annoy-a-trons, and some space schwag from our @NASA_SDO friends.

TJHSST is our favoritest geek training ground not only because it's local, but because our own dear codemonkey Jacob walked its halls back in the day. So we do it for the proto-Jacobs out there at TJ.

While the kids ran the robot gauntlet, we took a look at the beauty bot line-up and unanimously decided on the endearing Wall-E with his little cockroach pal. There were lots of impressive ones in the bunch, though, including the house from Up complete with tiny, tiny balloons, Yoda, and a paint palette with LED colors.

After the competition winners were announced, TJ faculty asked the gym full of students to gather for a photo, which was of course full of fail, and then the great teenage horde fell upon our goodie tables, pushing us back a few feet and ravenously snatching at whatever wasn't nailed down. It was AWESOME.

Before heading home, the faculty presented us with a fancypants plaque to make our 4th year's sponsorship official. Timmy and Shane were thrilled to accept it on our behalf and have already vowed to go back next year with even more stuff.

And yes, we did apologize to the teachers for bringing Annoy-a-trons with us. We're sure they'll be reminded of us often--and we hope fondly. Bwa ha ha ha.

FOR SCIENCE!!