The Spicewood Elementary School FIRST Lego League (FLL) team, The Immortals, advanced to the FLL World Festival after successfully competing at the Central Texas Regional Invitational Championship.

The Immortals will compete in the FLL World Festival, held in Houston April 19-22. This year, 32,000 teams from 88 countries participated in FLL and 102 teams from all over the country and the world were invited to compete at the Houston World Championship.

The Immortals consists of fifth-grade students Siyona Angihotri, Bela Jere, Aanchal Save and Eesha Siram. The team also included Tulsi J., who attends an out-of-District campus, as its fifth member. The team earned The Championship Award, which recognizes a team that embodies the FLL experience by fully embracing the Core Values while achieving excellence and innovation in both the Robot Game and Project, according to the organization.

“I love being in FLL because it helps us communicate more and be more open,” Bela said. “It also helped with confidence and speaking up. I used to be very shy, but now I have started interacting with other people.”

The England Lego Fanatics (E.L.F.) from England consisted of fifth-grade students Sahana Sankar, Sheevani Talati, Arinithi Arumugam, Sanjana Ram. The team also included Kavya J., who attends an out-of-District campus, as its fifth member. The team earned three Core Value Awards — The Inspiration Award, The Teamwork Award and The Gracious Professionalism Award.

“It feels really good to win three Core Value awards,” Sanjana said. “It shows that our team is the best at keeping ourselves intact.”

FLL introduces 9 to 14 year-old students to real-world engineering challenges by building Lego-based robots to complete tasks on a thematic playing surface, according to the organization. This year’s theme for FLL was the “ANIMAL ALLIES” Challenge, which tasked teams to research and identify a problem where humans and animals interact, then design a solution for the problem. Teams also design a robot to complete 15 different tasks outlined by FLL.