Lego League program honors CHS students

FIRST LEGO League held its Northern Nevada Championship on Jan. 26 at the University of Nevada, Reno and two Carson High School students were honored for their service to the program.

Rylan Fancher, a senior at Carson High School, was honored as the Outstanding Mentor for the 2018-19 season. He was recognized for his work with the FIRST LEGO League teams at Eagle Valley Middle School.

“Rylan has been instrumental to the success of our teams this season, helping us to improve by sharing his experience,” said Lisa Stocke-Koop, the team’s coach and the STEM Lab facilitator and teacher at Eagle Valley.

Fancher is no stranger to robotics, competing on an award-winning team that was invited to an international open event at Legoland while he was a student at Eagle Valley. He also participated on the FIRST Tech Challenge robotics team at Carson High School, serving as the team captain last season. In his final year, he made mentoring the teams at Eagle Valley his senior project.

Nanami Duncan, a junior at Carson High, received the Outstanding Volunteer award for her tireless work in the FIRST LEGO League program. She has been a student coach of FIRST LEGO League Jr. teams, an instructor at workshops, a mentor for teams and a referee at all FIRST LEGO League competitions held in Northern Nevada in the past three years. She has worked directly with at least eight teams this season. She, too, started as a participant on a highly successful FIRST LEGO League team and then joined the FIRST Tech Challenge team at Carson High School. She’s the lead programmer for the team, which won the top award at the championship event for Northern Nevada held Jan. 27.

Fancher and Duncan were members of the successful robotics team from Carson High School that received an invitation to the FIRST Championship in 2017, competing with the best teams from around the world.