Over the weekend, the First Lego League (FLL) robotics team made up of grade 7 students Aria Coalson, Maya Kumar, Mona Lee, Anooshree Sengupta and Jessica Susai took home the championship trophy at the FLL NorCal Championship, in addition to winning first place in the Robot Performance category. The team, known as “Raining Sunshine,” qualified for the tournament on Nov. 11 after earning top honors in Robot Performance at a FLL qualifier, racking up a staggering 475 points, 100 points more than the runner-up team. In addition, the team was awarded the second-place Champion’s Award for their exceptional teamwork, research and robot design.

“G3ARZ,” another robotics team with Harker seventh graders Shaya Zarkesh, Rajiv Movva and Derek Kuo, also performed admirably at a Nov. 18 FLL qualifier, earning the first place Champion’s Award in a field of 16 teams for their excellent performance in the Project, Robot Design, Core Values and Robot Performance categories. FLL competition teams are parent-organized and supported. We look forward to the girls contributing to the upper school robotics program when they get to the Saratoga campus!