Culver School students recorded some impressive achievements in recent scholastic competitions.
A robotics team made up of three Culver seventh graders won a tournament earlier this month involving competitors from the Niles Township elementary districts — known as the “Little Nine.” The teams design and build robots to respond to a challenge set up by tournament organizers, and judges select the top teams. The event was held at McCracken Middle School in Skokie.
The three teammates — Mohammad, David and Edwin — say participation in the robotics team has taught them lessons about dedication and teamwork. It also helped them develop and refine skills in computer programming and robot engineering. They say they are already looking forward to competing again next year.
Culver has six robotics teams in all, with 15 students participating.
Culver also is celebrating the three top spellers in the school’s recent spelling bee. Students Zainab, Alyssa and Fernanda finished first, second and third, respectively, among 44 participants from grades 4 through 8.
Following the schoolwide competition, Zainab placed third in the North Cook Region spelling bee and has advanced to the next level.
“I’m proud of myself and happy for the other two winners,” Zainab said. “We all worked so hard.”
Alyssa said, “I was nervous, as it was my first spelling bee. But when I was on stage, I was less nervous. I loved it.”
Fernanda said she practiced hard, as did her fellow spellers. “I wrote the words in a notebook and kept repeating the words and spelling them,” she said. “I now know how to spell hard words.”
All three students look forward to more spelling bees in the future. Zainab said, “I now have a passion to learn etymology — Greek and Latin roots. I love knowing where the words come from.”