In early December, eighth graders Ashwin Kuppahally, Adrian Liu, Vivek Nayyar, Kabir Ramzan and Om Tandon competed the VEX IQ Challenge robotics tournament in Los Altos, where they earned the Excellence Award, the competition’s highest honor. This award is given to teams who excel in criteria such as event challenges, teamwork and robot design. At a previous competition, the team qualified for the state championship and the US Open Robotics World event after being recognized for the top robot design. They will compete the VEX State Championships in March and the CREATE U.S. Open Robotics Championship the following month.