Tech Search Party is in the Books.  Thanks to everyone that made 3.0 such a success.  Because of your participation and support, we raised over $18K for the technology programs at Alvarado Elementary, James Lick Middle School and Marshall Elementary.

Before we get to final standings and prize winners, a final word of thanks to all of this year’s sponsors.

Google
Back for a third year, our friends in Mt. View are happy to support our annual geekapalooza.

Wyse Technology
Joining us a sponsor for the first time, Wyse provides cloud clients; computers that are just like PCs except they don’t break down and they last a heck of a lot longer.

Circle Bank
Championing the entrepreneurial goals and personal visions of their customers by delivering uncommonly friendly, responsive and respectful service and enriching the communities they serve.

First Republic Bank
First Republic Bank represents a distinctive model in private banking and wealth management. With a sharp focus on extraordinary, personalized service, First Republic addresses the needs of its private banking clientele with products that are flexibly delivered in a timely manner. Member FDIC.

Verizon Wireless
Another first-time sponsor, that whole wireless technology thing might really come in handy on Feb. 4.  Verizon Wireless operates the nation’s largest, most reliable 3G network and the nation’s largest 4G LTE network.

Wired.com
Wired.com is the online partner of WIRED magazine, offering 15 million monthly readers an insightful mix of real time news, opinion, reviews and how-to tutorials from the front lines of technology and culture.

Award Winners
The answers to all of the questions have been published on the Tech Search Party blog, which you can find here.  As to our prize winners, our top three finishers are:

1. Team Kai
2. Is our children learning?
3. Trot for Teacher

The Geek Squad at TSP Headquarters went to the email time-stamps to confirm that just seconds separated the top 5 finishers.  Just shy of geek dominance were Seriously? in 4th place and Achilles HEAL rounding out the top 5.

• The award for Best Team Name went to DroidUnderMyBum.
• The PG&E Corporate Challenge was won by the Indominable Immersion Mamas, and
• The Condescending Ribbon went to, not surprisingly, the team called We’re Here for the Beer

Thanks again for the prize donations from:

• Coffee & Power gift certificates
• Case of Cole Hardware wine.
• Plantronics headsets
• Seesaw gift certificates
• Copies of The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness
• Sifteo Cubes
• Sports Basement gift certificates

Degree of Difficulty
Full explanation of the clues solved is here, but it turns out that Question 2, Moto, Apoy, Feuer, proved to be the most difficult to solve.  Questions 3 (Ray met here in a SOHO club) and 8 (the QR code for Pixie Hall Studios) were solved by the most teams.

Final Standings
Below are the final standings with the number of correct answers per team.  Every team was time-stamped so this is the exact order.  We’ve included the time-stamps for the top five teams to give you a peak at just how close this baby was.  Seriously?, being fifteen seconds out of the money, is aptly named, don’t you think?

1. Team Kai    10    (8:14:19)
2. Is our children learning?     10    (8:14:26)
3. Trot for Teacher     10    (8:17:06)
4. Seriously?    10    (8:17:19)
5. Achilles HEAL    10     (8:18:32)
6. Regular Expressionists    9
7. Team with a TechSearch Tattoo      9
8. Bankin’ On Our Looks    9
9. Miraloma Dragon Behinds    9
10. Pish Posh! All that Jam and no toast!    9
11. We’re techin’ the prize tonight!     9
12. Future Techies & One Old Guy    9
13. Being smart is cool!    9
14. Oh Noe They Didn’t!    9
15. DroidUnderMyBum     9
16. Moms on a Mission     9
17. Indomitable Immersion Mamas     9
18. Top Corner       8
19. Doc’s Crew       8
20. Team PT&A      8
21. The Fruitcups     8
22. Pronoiacs    8
23. Parker     8
24. Mockingjay    8
25. Frito Banditos    8
26. Alvarado Elementary, My Dear Watson     7
27. Veggie Guice 2.0 Cloud Experience    7
28. Noe Holmes 2 Go 2    7
29. Noe-it-alls    7
30. Kvetchers Whine Club    6
31. Poodle Private Eyes    6
32. The Heat    6
33. DragonRAzz     6
34. HULT Noe-It-Alls    5
35. Team Hero    3
36. Vigo    3
37. We’re here for the Beer    1
38. Lucky Stars    0
39. Placeholder Name    0
40. Sunset surfers     0