Ten teams of students from West Mercer Elementary, Islander Middle School and Mercer Island High School competed in the Seattle Area Regional Destination ImagiNation Tournament on March 2 in Issaquah.

Each team had worked together since last fall in preparation for this competition, with the guidance of West Mercer teachers, Mr. Headlee and Mr. Reyes.

At the tournament, teams competed in multiple varied challenges utilizing the core principles of the program, which are creativity, teamwork and problem-solving.

Six teams placed in the tournament, and the four first-place teams will continue on to compete in the State Tournament and represent the Seattle Metro Area on April 6 in Wenatchee.  Teams winning that competition will move on to the Global Tournament, held in Knoxville, Tenn., during May.

The teams included:

• First place:  Elementary Structural Team; Twist-O-Rama Challenge.  The Spicy Sombreros;  Bridger Bourke, Kevin Li, Ichiro Nakata, Akhil Pothineni, Julian Sanders, Ryan Shobe, Justin Skene.

• First place: High School Structural Team; Twist-O-Rama Challenge. The Illusions; Trevor Gullstad, Grace Hunter, Jason McRurer, Josh Park, Jay Rosenstein, Aidan Wang.

• First place: Elementary Improvisational Team; Change in Realitee Challenge.  Overcooked Lasagna; Sophia Chen, Jasper Greer, Lauren Hunter, Mollie Parkinson, Sophia Ristuben, Ben Roe,  Lila Shroff.

• First place: Middle School Improvisational Team; Change in Realitee Challenge.  Los Tacos Hermanos; Verli Chen, Cole Nielsen, Ben Stoops, Bryan Zhao.

• Second place: Middle School Structural Team: Twist-O-Rama Challenge. We Don’t Need a Name; Owen Bernstein, Nico Galvin, Leif Gullstad, William Lacrampe, Albert Lam, Neal Ma, Andrew Motz.

• Second place: Middle School Technical Team: In the Zone Challenge. Double Negatives; William Goodwin, Vinny Ricci, Nate Robinson, Zoe Sheill, Damien Snyder, Igal Tamarkin, Derek Wang.

• A special Renaissance Award was also given to The Illusions team for creativity and design of their butterfly costume.