Using Drupal’s news aggregator module, I (think I) figured out how to get RSS feeds onto the Drupal site.

I told it to pick up aprilcore.com RSS feeds.  So now I am posting this at aprilcore.com to see if it transfers over to the Drupal site.

OMAHA, Neb. - If there’s one thing Kansas State University fans hate more than losing, it’s the University of Kansas.

After their defeat at the hands of Wisconsin, K-State Wildcat fans filed out of the Quest Center Omaha muttering contempt for the Badgers and well wishes for the Runnin’ Rebels.

“[UNLV] is my second favorite team right now,” K-State fan Josh Walker said before the Rebels took the court against KU. I would root for the Russians if they were playing against KU.”

Don Kesinger’s reasons for supporting UNLV in their ill-fated match-up with KU were less bitter.

“[Lon Kruger] is still a K-Stater,” Kesinger said.

Kruger, once a player at K-State, helped bring the Wildcats to Big Eight championships in 1972 and 1973. Later, in 1988 as a coach, he led K-State into the Elite 8, where they were defeated by the Jayhawks.

With this in mind, Wildcat and Rebels fans joined together Saturday to cheer on UNLV in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Although the Jayhawks pulled ahead in the second half to beat the Rebels, 75-56, few would have been able to tell based off the energy pulsating from UNLV’s fan section.

With nearly seven minutes left in the game, KU fans began waving goodbye to the Rebels fans, only to be met by a thunderous “U-N-L-V” chant.

More telling perhaps was that, with roughly 20 seconds left in the game and down 19 points, a “Re-bels” chant loud enough to penetrate television audiences erupted from the stands.

It seems that for most fans, the team’s defeat was expected, and the accomplishments in reestablishing UNLV as a dominating force in college basketball were reason enough for celebration.

“It was an incredible season,” UNLV alumnus Danny Campbell said.

Russell Swain, a fan who traveled from Las Vegas for the game, agreed.

“KU was just so loaded,” he said.

The kiss of death, Swain added, was UNLV’s short bench.

Fan Tim Lanning agreed.

“Once Joe and René got fouled out, that was a tell-tale sign,” he said, referencing forward Joe Darger and guard René Rougeau’s exit from the game. Forward Matt Shaw came close with four fouls.

Lanning, a UNLV alumnus currently living in Omaha, said he still believed the Rebels “fared alright” given the circumstances.

“They just had too much on us,” he added. “[KU is] probably the most well-rounded team.”

Recognizing a loss to a good team, Rebels fans are hopeful about the future.

After the game, with the Qwest Center Omaha arena nearly empty, Campbell sat with his face painted red, his hands still clutching a UNLV sign and his feet hanging over the empty chair in front of him.

“Don’t worry. It’ll be more fun next year,” he said. “We’ll do better.”

At first glance, they might have seemed like a bunch of dorks doing a conga line in the Thomas & Mack Center while Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine blare from the loudspeakers.

However, the participants of the FIRST Robotics Competition – held Thursday through Saturday at UNLV – were anything but dorky and the event they were participating in was hardly all fun and games.

The fourth annual For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Competition brought together more than 1,200 students from across the nation to Las Vegas to enter student-built robots in a game which included knocking down giant inflated balls, moving and tossing the balls around a 54′ by 27′ track.

Granted, competition seemed like the last thing on students’ minds during a brief break before the final rounds of the competition.

Teams that had already been knocked out of the competition formed a conga line and danced through the aisles of the arena. As “Conga” faded into Queen’s “We Are the Champions,” students linked arms and swayed, singing the chorus to a song recorded years before they were born.

On the floor, the about-to-compete team members radiated the same free spirit and energy.

“We’ve learned how to have competition but still be friends,” FIRST participant Mae Cates said. “[Everyone] becomes like a second family.”

Cates, a junior at Queen Creek High School in Arizona, was part of Team 1013 – one of the major winners of the Las Vegas regional.

According to Cates, she didn’t have many friends before joining the world of robotic competition.

“Now I make new [friends] everyday,” she said.

And friendship is only the beginning.

A Brandeis University study found that nearly 90 percent of FIRST alumni attend college, noticeably higher than the 65 percent national average of high school graduates.

“The competition is not only providing students the knowledge and motivation to pursue science and engineering careers,” UNLV College of Engineering Dean Eric Sandgren said. “It’s also giving them the confidence needed to succeed.”

While she hasn’t graduated high school yet, Cates was quick to acknowledge the role that FIRST has played in her decision to wish to continue her education past high school.

“If it weren’t for robotics,” she said. “I wouldn’t go to college.”

Cates added that she hopes her participation in FIRST will lead to scholarship opportunities. She hopes to major in computer science.

On her future scholarship applications, Cates will be able to say she participated in the physical building of a robot, assisted in conducting silent auctions to fundraise and helped run the finances of a student organization.

Over the summer, she wants to learn computer programming so she can become more involved in next year’s competition.

Her steadfast dedication to the program was not unmatched.

According to Cimarron-Memorial High School junior Kelly Anderson, being involved with her school’s robotics club has been “a 24-7 thing.”

“It’s overwhelming,” she said. “Crazy. But it’s worth it.”

Anderson added that she felt like she’d gotten a total of five hours of sleep during the three-day event.

Cimarron-Memorial’s Team 987, the High Rollers, was the ultimate winner of the Las Vegas FIRST competition. The team was selected to win a chairman’s award, which invites the High Rollers to another competition in Atlanta.

Anderson, who dreams one day of working in a crime scene investigative unit, helped with the electrical work on her team’s robot.

For her, a love of science backed her devotion to her school’s robotics club.

According to the Brandeis University study, more than 40 percent of FIRST alumni report selecting engineering as their college major. That’s seven times the national average.

FIRST notes on its website that the mission is “to create a world where science and technology are celebrated … where young people dream of becoming science and technology heroes.”

The competitions and challenges appear to be doing just that, but for the students in the conga line there’s a better reason for being involved.

It’s simply too much fun not to be.