Here's the good news: The Beach Cities Robotics Team, made up of students from Mira Costa High School and Redondo Union High School, won the Aerospace Valley Regional Competition on April 6 and qualified for the First Robotics World Championship in Houston this year.

Now here's the challenge: The world championships start April 17, so the team has only a matter of days to raise money to take about 30 team members and mentors to Houston.

The team has created a GoFundMe fundraiser with the goal of raising $25,000.

"This is the first regional competition that the team has won in 10 years, so it is very exciting, but we need as much help as we can get to make it happen," said parent Liisa Hiatt, who is organizing the fundraiser. "These kids worked very hard and came from behind in the finals to win."

Team is Ranked 96th Worldwide

The team is comprised of five seniors, 12 juniors, 12 sophomores, and 13 freshmen, according to teacher advisor Sarah Keasler. (Keasler notes that COVID is probably the reason there are not as many seniors, given that it took a few years to rebuild the team after the pandemic.)

"Our students are excited to participate with teams from across the nation," said Keasler. "The tournament spans four days with warmups on day one, qualifications on days two and three and then the finals on day four.  Our students will then visit the Johnson Space Center to learn more about aeronautics before heading home."

The high school championships involve students from more that 600 teams who compete on special playing fields with robots they have designed, programmed, and built themselves.

"We get two months to CAD [computer-aided design], build, wire, and program our entire robot," said team member Vivian Snyder. "All of our robot is completely CADded and machined from scratch, every part 3-D printed, every connector hand crimped, and programmed from scratch in Java."

Although the group is primarily student-run, their advisors include teachers, parents, and mentors from organizations including Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, SpaceX, Chevron, and Disney.

(Photo via Beach Cities Robotics)

The Beach Cities Robotics team (motto: "Two rival schools; one extreme team!") has earned a record of 24-9-1 in their competitions for 2024. They are ranked 13th in California, 80th in the U.S., and 96th worldwide out of more than 3,400 teams.