Congratulations to Blake Cortez, a fifth-grade student at Whiting Elementary School who has won the Academic Award from the National Association of Gifted Children for Grades 3-5! 

Blake is a part of the school district's Gifted and Talented Program and was involved in the Passion Projects during their Gifted and Talented class period. Students were challenged to find a project that they were passionate about and demonstrate it to their fifth-grade classmates. Blake created a LEGO robot with a motor. He then created code to allow the robot to communicate with him in real-time, due to mathematical equations on command, including a sensor that allowed the robot to recognize color through code. Blake even made the robot dance!

Blake's teacher recognizes him as an extraordinary student and proudly submitted him for this award and recognition. Congratulations to Blake on this achievement!

Blake's family shares that he is an 11-year-old from Whiting, NJ.  He enjoys learning about coding and engineering, playing baseball, hanging out with his friends, visiting Puerto Rico, and traveling to different places around the world.  He is always looking to make a new friend and is super charismatic.  He is beyond his years and loves to study and learn as many new things as possible.  When he was younger he wanted to become a brain surgeon and learned all of the parts of the brain by 6 years old.  Now he wants to learn how to build different types of technology and create artificial intelligence.  He maintains amazing grades while participating in sports and having a ton of friends.  He aspires to go to college and become an engineer and use those skills to create something revolutionary and become an entrepreneur.