Fox Chapel Area's Sanjay and Arvind Seshan take top prize at robotics competition

Brothers and Fox Chapel Area students Sanjay and Arvind Seshan won the champion's and robot performance awards at the Western Pennsylvania State Championship of the First Lego League at La Roche College on Jan. 13.

First Lego League is an international robotics contest for children 9 to 14.

At La Roche, there were 82 teams that competed.

Students had to build and program autonomous robots to complete tasks, do a research project and demonstrate teamwork.

The champion's award was the top prize in the competition.

The brothers' robot was the highest scoring one at the event.

The pair has been competing in First Lego League since 2011, when they were 6 and 8.

They have a website, EV3Lessons.com, which they use to teach robotics to more than 220,000 users from 175 countries.

The boys said they believe strongly in promoting science, technology, engineering and math and passing on their passion and knowledge to others. In November, they were invited to Costa Rica to present as robot experts at the World Robot Olympiad.

Next up for the boys is a trip to Copenhagen, Denmark, to share their robotics projects at Lego World, then on to Detroit in April to represent Pennsylvania at a global tournament, World Festival.

Tawnya Panizzi is a staff writer for the Tribune-Review. Reach her at 412-782-2121, ext. 2, tpanizzi@tribweb.com or via Twitter@tawnyatrib.