Three Mercer Island teams have qualified for the global Destination Imagination event with their first place results in the state competition held this month in East Wenatchee.

Destination Imagination is an educational program in which student teams solve open-ended challenges and present their solutions at tournaments. The winning teams are coached by Mark Headlee, teacher at West Mercer Elementary. The Global Finals will be held May 24-27 in Knoxville, Tenn.

Winning first place in the Technical Challenge, Team Syntacts from Mercer Island High School qualified for Global Finals. Team members are: Alex White, Ethan Torok, Andrew Motz, Nico Galvin, Derek Wang, William Lacrampe, and Damien Snyder. The team also earned a Renaissance Award, which is given for Outstanding Design, Engineering or Performance.

Team This Isn’t Legible from Islander Middle School qualified for the Global Finals, taking home first place in the Engineering Challenge at state. Team Members are: Jake Chansky, Wesley Ho, Kevin Wang, Sam Frohlich, Justin Lesko, Max Zhao, and Landon Schmidt-Warnecke.

From Mercer Island elementary schools, Team Who Cares? earned first place in the Engineering Challenge, qualifying for Global Finals. Team Members are: Keegan Wang, Eliot Geer, Julius Perez, Ethan Mar, Quinn Shavey, Sidh Shroff and Daniel Marcus.

Also in the elementary division, Team Dabbing Taco Cats won fourth Place in the Fine Arts Challenge. Team Members are: Ethan Chang, Alden Ritter, Lucas Lessard, Armon Taherzadeh, Madison Liu, Samantha Pelter, and Matthew Lee, and the team manager is David Baxter.

Team We Have A Tie! placed second in the Engineering Challenge. Team members are: Cole Nielsen, Verli Chen, Nic Lacrampe, Vinny Ricci, Justin Skene, Oliver Chang, and Ichi Nakata, and the team manager is Mark Headlee.