Kirkland resident places sixth at Lego champs

Published 4:48 pm Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Eastside Prep student Nika Samsavar’s FIRST LEGO League (FLL) team “Blue Angels” took sixth place at the Western Washington State Championship at the ShoWare Center in Kent in January.

The Blue Angels also received the Judges Awards, which recognizes whose unique efforts, performance or dynamics merit recognition.

The FLL, a division of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), introduces younger students, ages 9 to 14, to real-world engineering challenges or “missions” by building and programming LEGO-based robots to complete tasks on a specific, thematic playing surface.

FLL teams compete in three categories, core value/team work, robot performance and design, project presentation. FLL is a world wide competition for kids 9 to 14 years of age .

Samsavar first joined the Blue Angels in September 2014. The team is endorsed by Girl Scouts of Western Washington and has two coaches and six members.

The Blue Angels also took third place at the semifinals competition in January, where they also won the programming award for using outstanding programming principles. At the Eastside qualifying competition in December, they took third while also capturing the gracious professionalism award that recognizes a team whose members show each other and other teams respect at all times.

There were 450 teams competing from the start and they ended up sixth in the state of Washington.

Eastside Prep is located in Kirkland at 10613 NE 38th Place.