The LEGO Lassies, a robotics team of six 10-year-old girls from Kirkland-area schools, won the Champion’s Award at two recent FIRST LEGO tournaments.

The first win came at the North Sound qualifier on Dec. 2, 2017, which had 44 teams competing. The second win was Jan. 20 at the Seattle Semifinal tournament at which 30 teams competed.

The LEGO Lassies, who are in their second year of competition, have earned a spot at the Western Washington State Championship Tournament on Sunday at ShoWare Center in Kent.

FIRST Washington hosts 18 qualifier tournaments to field more than 600 teams in the state. Teams are interviewed by judges in three areas: core values, research project and robot design.

According to a press release, the Champion’s Award recognizes a team that “embodies the FIRST LEGO League experience, by fully embracing our core values while achieving excellence and innovation in both the robot game and project.” At an official event judges look for balanced, strong performance across all three areas to determine the initial group of champion’s candidates, the release states. Final determination of the award winner is based on a vote of the full judging panel.

In addition to winning the Champion’s Award, the LEGO Lassies ranked third in the robot games in the qualifier and second at the semifinals. For their research project, the LEGO Lassies invented a replacement spout for outdoor drinking fountains that automatically tests the water for cleanliness, intending to improve the trust people have in outdoor drinking fountains and reduce their dependence on disposable water bottles, the release states.