Team Forces Unknown going to World Championship!

We are a group of ten high school students from Delta, Richmond, Langley and Vancouver who have been working for years to earn an opportunity to compete at the World Championship. And this year, we actually made it! We compete in the FIRST Tech Challenge robotics league as Team #16267 "Forces Unknown". FIRST is an amazing organization that promotes STEM learning all over the world in a safe competition environment for kids of all ages. Our team has been working together for the past four years in this league, and each year we build a new robot to compete in the annual challenges both locally and at the provincial level. This time around, we need extra help to meet our goal of going to the international World Championship.

This year, we worked harder than ever before, going back to the drawing board mid-season to work on our robot design, and spent countless hours prototyping, testing, troubleshooting and upgrading our robot. We overcame numerous challenges and went from barely being able to play matches at local scrimmages in December to becoming the captains of the Winning Alliance at our regional Qualifier in January and the Finalist Alliance at the BC Championship in February. We also received the Think Award for engineering documentation, and the Motivate Award for outreach and community impact. One of our teammates was recognized as BC Dean's List Finalist. Lastly, we received the 2nd place Inspire Award and advanced to the World Championship!

But here's the problem: So far we've only raised less than 20% of the money we need to get to Texas with our robot. We've been out there fundraising like crazy: We've hosted spring break robotics camps for elementary school-aged children, and programming workshops for underserved groups (girls in STEM, low-income, refugees, newcomers and Indigenous peoples) through the CanCode government grant. We've also submitted a video to enter a WorkSafe contest for prize money, sold donuts outside of grocery stores, and are currently running bottle drives in our respective communities. Unfortunately, even with all of these efforts, we fear that we won’t be able to earn enough money to cover our large travel bill.

Here's why we are experiencing such a tremendous burden and are in need of help:

Airfare and hotel for 12 people (10 kids and 2 coaches) - $15,000

Meals during our week in Texas - $6,800

Worlds registration fees - $2,837

Team uniforms, pit display & signage - $1,530

Transportation & trip in Texas - $1,192

Robot supplies and key spare parts - $150

ESTIMATED TOTAL TRIP COST = $27,509

Any money you donate will go towards our airfare expenses and transport of our robot to the World Championship. We've come this far, please help us make it all the way and make this dream a reality!

Please visit our Team 16167 Forces Unknown website if you would like to learn more about our robotics team. You can watch this 3-minute video to meet us virtually. We sincerely appreciate your kind support!