Johnston County Robotics Team Advances To World Championship

CLAYTON – For the second year in a row, the all-girl robotics team from Johnston County has advanced to the FIRST Robotics World Championship. This year’s global competition takes place April 17-20, 2024 at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas.

G-Force Robotics, an all-girl robotics team from Clayton, N.C. won the Engineering Inspiration Award at the FIRST North Carolina State Championship on April 7, 2024. The team advances to the FIRST Robotics World Championship in Houston, Texas where they will compete against 600 teams from 28 countries April 17-20, 2024. Contributed Photo

G-Force Robotics, based in Clayton, won the FIRST North Carolina State Championship Engineering Inspiration Award which is an automatic qualifier for the world competition. The award recognizes a team for outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s school, organization and community. The young women of G-Force Robotics are on a mission to encourage and inspire other young girls in STEM and have designed several programs for elementary, middle and high school girls.

One such program is their “Be That Engineer” literacy project which works to increase awareness about women in STEM at the youngest reading levels. The team obtains books about women and girls in STEM, asks female STEM professionals to sign notes of encouragement on the inside covers and then donates the books to elementary schools while giving a robotics demonstration and talking about their team and FIRST Robotics. The team has partnered with nine organizations and companies to include Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar, OnLogic, Grifols, Collins Aerospace, U.S. Space Command, Society for Women Engineers, Northrop Grumman and Discovery Channel’s BattleBots, and has grown the program in seven states and overseas.

Twelve teenage girls representing 10 different schools in Johnston and Wake Counties advance to compete in the FIRST Robotics World Championship, April 17-20,2024. G-Force Robotics won the state competition’s engineering inspiration award and now advances to compete for the global award against 78 other teams from across the U.S. and abroad. This is the second year in a row that the team has advanced to the global competition. Contributed Photo

In addition to community outreach, the team built a 123-lb, industrial-sized robot for competition match play. The robotics competition builds technical skills in computer-aided design, mechanical and electrical engineering and coding along with soft skills in marketing, business, teamwork, critical thinking and public speaking. There are 77 teams throughout North Carolina with nearly 3,500 teams spread across 28 countries. Six hundred teams advance to the world championship with an audience of 50,000 attendees.

In 2023, G-Force Robotics won the FIRST Robotics World Championship Rookie All-Star Award in Houston. This year they will compete against 78 other teams for the World Championship Engineering Inspiration Award, along with competing in two full days of robot match play.

“HellCAT,” a 123-lb, industrial-sized robot completes a climbing challenge during the FIRST North Carolina State Championship held at East Carolina University April 6-7, 2024. The robot was designed, built and programmed by the young women of G-Force Robotics, FIRST Robotics Competition Team 9008, based in Clayton, N.C. The team qualified to compete at the world championship in Houston, Texas April 17-20, 2024. Contributed Photo

For more information about the team or their “Be That Engineer” literacy project go to: https://gforcerobotics.com/

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