REYNOLDSBURG, Ohio (WCMH) – The robotics team from Reynoldsburg eSTEM Academy is headed for the 2016 FIRST Championship in St. Louis, a robotics competition for high school students.

FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Inspiration and is dedicated to igniting a youth interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).

The Reynoldsburg team, which has been competing since 2010, beat out thousands of other teams for the honor.

“We were on a wait list to go the world championship. A team wasn’t able to go and they pick a random team off that list and we were chosen,” says Aleyna Dragonette, a junior and lead member of the team.

FIRST Team 4085, or team “Technical Difficulties” as they call themselves, will join 400 teams from across the world in St. Louis from April 27-30 to compete.

Dragonette believes this year’s robot is good enough to win.

“We had to build a robot that could go over several defenses and be able to go into a tower and shoot boulders, which are foam balls,” she describes.

Jim Coley is a teacher at Reynoldsburg High School eSTEM Academy. He is also the coach and founding teacher of the robotics team. Coley remembers the early days of the team when they had little funding and not materials.

“We had no tools. We didn’t even have screw drivers. We progressed over five years where we are building robots in our FabLab,” says Coley.

The team is now among the top five robotics teams in Ohio. They’ve won awards for best design and other accolades.

Technical Difficulties found out late last week that they were invited to the world championship, but funding the trip is proving difficult. The entry fee, which the district helped pay, is $5,000. They need another $5,000 to pay for hotels, transportation and food.

Coley says the club relies heavily on sponsors to fuel their season, but have almost exhausted their budget for this school year.

“Having someone say, hey you get to go to worlds, but it’s going to cost you $5,000 and you have 48 hours to come up with it – it’s a bit of a shock,” said Coley.

Dragonette said the trip means a lot of the team and they hope the community can help them get there by next Wednesday.

“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity for us,” she says.

Technical Difficulties has an online fundraising campaign. http://akickincrowd.com/projects/help-out-first-team-4085What others are clicking on: