Austin’s All-Girls robotics team goes for another title – KVUE

They have national sponsors, more than a dozen awards and enough brainpower to build and battle it out with robots. Austin's "lady cans" robotics team is headed to an international competition.

Tina Shively, KVUE 11:20 PM. CDT April 18, 2017

Austin's Lady Cans robotics team is headed to an international competition in Houston on Wednesday. (Photo: KVUE)

AUSTIN - They have national sponsors, more than a dozen awards and enough brain power to build and battle it out with robots.

Austin's Lady Cans robotics team is headed to an international competition in Houston on Wednesday.

To say the group's Chief Operating Officer, 18-year-old Marlo is a natural-born leader, would be an understatement.

"We run our team like a business," she said. "We know where we wanna be in five years. We have our goals for the future. We have a business plan, a budget, team imagery, a website, all of that is definitely part of being on our team."

The Lady Cans is an all-girl robotics team from Austin made up of middle and high school-aged Girl Scouts.

The 42 member team is packing up for the 2017 FIRST Robotics Championship.

Susie Rich is the team's mentor.

A dance teacher by trade, she worked with the Girl Scouts organization back in 2009 to bring in mentors who work in the STEM fields to teach the girls robotics. Eight years later, their awards speak for themselves.

Rich's daughter Allison asked to start the team when she was tired of watching from the sidelines.

Now,Allison is a mechanical engineer at NASA.

She is just one of the team's success stories. Other alumni are Engineers and Ph.D. candidates, all with training that started on this team.

Marlo added, "We're prototyping; we're making the computer 3D model; we're programming; we're doing the electronics; we're cutting each individual piece; [and] we're doing all of that ourselves."

Susie has enjoyed watching them and says she'll do it as long as the Girl Scouts will let her.

"I don't know which girl that walks through the door is going to be the one that's going to be the world changer, and one of these girls is going to be. So I have to keep the door open," she said.

450 teams will work together to battle opponents in the international competition, but only a handful are made up of all girls.

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