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Students from the Lake Washington and Bellevue school districts nabbed high honors at the Western Washington FIRST Lego League Championship, a robotics competition for middle and elementary students, last weekend.

Washington FIRST aims to inspire students to pursue careers in science and technology. Multiple teams of Bellevue students advanced to the Lego League state championship that were held on Jan. 30 at the ShoWare Center in Kent.

The “Bellevue Bellebots” won the championship, while a team of sixth graders called the “Blue Angels”, was named first runner-up and won the “Best Programming Award” at the event.

Prior to that, they each competed against more than 500 Washington state teams Dec. 12 at the Eastside Qualifier before advancing to the semifinals at Shoreline Community College to compete against 30 teams.

The Bellebots will now go on to the World Championship, scheduled for April 27-30 in St. Louis, MO.

The following Lake Washington and Bellevue school district students participated in the event:

Emily Deane, BSD, Big Picture School

Sydney Davis, BSD, Big Picture School

Nikita Singh, BSD, Odle Middle School

Sophia Fang, BSD, Odle Middle School

Serena Yin, BSD, Odle Middle School

Eleanor Wu, BSD, International School

Jessica Massey, BSD, International School

Nika Samsavar, LWSD, Environmental and Adventure school

Emma Shi, LWSD, Inglewood Middle School

Alexandra Batoukova, LWSD, Inglewood Middle School

For more information on Washington FIRST, visit www.firstwa.org/.

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