Northshore Christian Academy’s (NCA) Middle School Robotics Teams: Robogators Blue Team #6438 and Robogators Yellow Team #6430, both successfully competed at the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Qualifiers in December, the Regional Semi-Finals in January, and finally this last weekend at the Western Washington State Championships!

Robogators’ Blue Team finished 1st out of 30 teams at their contest at the Regionals, were awarded ‘Regional Champions’ at their qualifier in December (judged as best overall team in Project, Core and Robot). Robogators Yellow Team finished 8th out of 30 teams with their robot on Sunday, Jan. 22, after being given the Innovative Solutions Award at their qualifier in December. Robogators’ Blue Team also won ‘The Robot Strategy’ and ‘Innovation Awards’.

NCA’s Robogators Blue and Yellow teams both advanced on to the FLL Western Washington State Championships at the Kent ‘ShoWare Center’ on Saturday, Feb. 4, 2017. This was the fourth year in a row that NCA has had two teams at the State Finals. NCA Robogators entered as 2 out of 30 teams competing, chosen from 600 initial teams statewide.

Western WA State Competition teams and results:
NCA Robogators YELLOW Team (#6430):
• Students: Patrick C., Isabelle F., Christian H., Ralen K., Julia P., Kermit TP., & Cody W.
• Coached by: Mrs. Connee Finch, Mr. Tura Kovara & Mrs. Kristen Kreutner
• 5th place finish in the Robot Games and Won the Mechanical Design Award from judges.
NCA Robogators BLUE Team (#6438):
• Students: Zack A., Jakob D., Luis Miguel J., Emily O., Connor R., Maria S., & Tyler Z.
• Coached by: Mr. Chad Abramson, Mrs. Elise Abramson, Mr. Cori Stephan & Mr. Jason Reiner
• 1st place finish (Highest scoring robot)

Outreach events NCA Robogators held within the community for this season:
• Special Olympics / Unified Robotics Championships - Showcased FLL and STEM at this awesome event which had students of special needs learned to build and compete with robots.
• Casino Road Ministries - Shared their robotic experiences with other kids within the community, encouraged them to excel in school, especially math and sciences and had fun playing with robots.
• Seattle Storm (Women's Basketball) STEM Event - Displayed FLL to many young students and educators. Was able to create of good relationship with Holy Rosary School in Edmonds, which was inspired to create four new FLL teams!
• Holy Rosary School - Assisted two new teams from Holy Rosary School, one of which was given an award for their project innovation!
• Pre-season Scrimmage at Microsoft - Assisted several newer teams in learning design and building skills, as well as strategies.

The FLL’s annual robotic competition was developed to challenge kids in over 80 countries to think like scientists and engineers. In the 2016 FLL Challenge ‘Animal Allies’, more than 28,000 teams of students (age 9 to 16) will look into the eyes of our ‘Animal Allies’.

What might become possible when we learn to help each other? During the ‘Animal Allies’ season, teams will choose and solve a real-world problem in the challenge. They will also build, test, and program an autonomous robot using LEGO MINDSTORMS® technology to solve a set of missions in the Robot Game. Throughout their experience, teams will operate under the FLL signature set of Core Values, celebrating discovery, teamwork, and Gracious Professionalism® and are judged on Core Values, Project, and Robot Design.

FLL’s eight core values which students are required to exemplify, both with the team and in their everyday lives, are:
1. We are a team; 2. We do the work to find solutions with guidance from our coaches and mentors; 3. We honor the spirit of friendly competition; 4. We know our coaches and mentors don’t have all the answers and We learn together; 5. We share our experience with others; 6. What we discover is more important than what we learn; 7. We display gracious professionalism and cooperation in everything we do; 8. WE HAVE FUN!