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A Northern Virginia robotics team featuring three Fairfax County Public Schools students won the Overall Champion title at the VA+DC FIRST LEGO League Challenge Division 2 Regional Competition in early December.
The team, coached by The Masterpiece Academy, also placed second in the Robot Game Missions at the competition at Godwin High School in Richmond. The results earned the students a spot at the Virginia State Championship on Sunday, January 11.
Rocky Run Middle School student Kunsh Khanna led the engineering design for the team’s Innovation Project. He used Blender, a free open-source 3D creation program, to design a 3D-printed prototype and helped improve the robot through clean builds and repeated testing.
George John, a Rachel Carson Middle School student, served as lead programmer. He developed and refined the robot’s code and created the official ArchaeShip website to present the team’s research, engineering work and innovation process.
Chantilly High School student Muthya John supported the group as a youth mentor, providing guidance on coding, logic and creative problem-solving. She began coding in fourth grade and also contributed graphic design and visual communication skills to the team’s presentations and branding.
The team also included Loudoun County Public Schools student Aarsh Tripathi. Its coaches were Krishna Cart and Mildred John, a physics teacher at Herndon High School.