Level Up Automation has donated $1,200 to support Zetabots, an all girl robotics team to go to World Robotics championships in Texas.
The Zetabots is a team of 5 girls who have never competed in robotics until this year. The team is comprised of two fifth graders Lilly and Kaitlyn and three fourth graders Molly, Gabriela and Gisselle.
They will compete at the Vex IQ Worlds Competition taking place in Dallas May 10-12th where 600 teams from around the world will strategize with alliance partners, drive, and program to show what they and their robot can do.
And appropriately, Team Zetabots has named their robot She-Ra, the fictional superheroine in the 1985 Filmation series She-Ra: Princess of Power.
The team formed in September and began designing and building She-Ra from the ground up. They went to their first competition of the season with their robot barely functioning. They scored zero points.
While many people would feel defeated, week after week team Zetabots worked on their robot, progressively getting better and better performance. They used the processes of discovering and trial and error, and as we know it to be – engineering.
Incredibly, Zetabots in their first year of competition qualified to go to the Florida state championship. The week before the competition the team learned brand new coding that enabled considerable gains in their robot’s driving capabilities.
“Like many, I was inspired by their story. Their perseverance, grit.” Shares Jen Mallett, CEO and founder of Level Up Automation.
In March, they competed at the state championships and posted their best ever score of 74 points. Their performance earned them the Judges Award, a special recognition for outstanding robotics performance.
Neither of those outstanding accomplishments qualified the team for World Championships, unfortunately.
It turns out the universe had more planned for team Zetabots. The week after state championships, their school program director was notified that they had earned an invitation to World Championships because of their excellent showing at states. The statewide organization decided to make the move to acknowledge their performance, particularly in skills driving.
According to their coach, Christina Weaver, at the beginning of the season they were ranked almost dead last out of over 100 teams in the state for skills driving of She-Ra. The state coordinator for nationals announced that the last few invitations to world’s would strongly depend on skills rankings. Through their dedication to continuous improvement over the season, the team ranked 9th in the state of Florida for skills driving at state championships – an incredible performance and the major factor contributing to their worlds invitations.
“It is truly a Cinderella story for them. These five girls are over the moon excited,” shares Jennifer Royston from Level Up Automation of Florida who has a son competing on another team and brought the sponsorship opportunity forward.
Jen Mallett wrapped up by expressing her gratitude that Jennifer Royston reached out with the sponsorship opportunity “We could not be more honored to have Level Up named on the back of these girls’ shirts. They represent our future and we are proud of what they have accomplished this year. We hope the trip provides them exposure and new challenges that energize and ignite their love for technology and engineering.”
Go Zetabots!
About Level Up Automation
Founded in 2016 by veteran technology executive Jen Mallett, Level Up Automation is a leading national designer of Smart Homes & Intelligent Buildings.
Level Up is headquartered in Massachusetts and operates with local ownership in Greater Boston, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Orlando, Tampa, New Orleans, Baton Rouge and opening in July, Cincinnati, OH.
