RICHMOND, Va. — It’s not every day a middle school class invention is declared street legal by the governor, but that is exactly what happened at the Executive Mansion on Wednesday.
“Thank you all, so much, for being so creative. It is my pleasure to sign Senate Bill 774,” Governor Glenn Youngkin told the young students, parents and coaches representing Saint Bridget Catholic School’s robotics team.
Sponsored by Senator Siobhan Dunnavant, R-Henrico, the law allows school boards to enter into agreements with third party logistics companies and use school buses to transport packages from distribution centers while not in use for transporting students.
The legislative approval grew out of a middle school project.
The ironically named “Team Clueless,” created a device called a “Bus Box” to be installed on the undercarriage of buses for package transportation. The invention earned top honors at the state competition and earned its inventors an opportunity to compete at the FIRST LEGO League World Championship in Houston, where they won the “Rising All-Stars Award.”
“Every time we advanced to a new level and tried something new, we were like, ‘Wow, it’s so crazy we’ve gotten this far,” team member Eamon O’Connell said. “We were just a small school robotics team and now we’re at the Governor’s Mansion with signed legislation that we came up with. It’s crazy.”
