The award-winning all-girls Robotics team is starting up again at Grosse Pointe South. The All-Girls Robotics team is part of the For Inspiration of Science and Technology organization, which is an international group that sponsors the team and others from all over the world. The club gives many girls the chance to compete alone and offers many opportunities to pursue future careers in S.T.E.M. Coach Sherry Betcher has been leading the team throughout her daughter’s middle school career and started the all-irls Robotics team.

“We would like schools to recognize the need for something like this because not many schools have an all-girls Robotics team,” Betcher said. “In order to engage girls we need an all-girls team to empower them. There’s a lot of subconscious bias that comes into robotics without even realizing it, originally when Allie told me she wanted to do robotics I told her to ask her father, looking back on it we don’t realize how much bias there is.”

They build for three days during the school week and on Saturday from 6-8:30 pm continuously for six weeks to create the best robot possible. After the building period ends, there is a competition season where teams go to two competitions to rack up points to eventually go to states if they qualify and then worlds. Allison Betcher ’26 has been on an all-girls Robotics team for four seasons and has veteran experience when it comes to creating machinery.

“We had great success last year and we’re starting to understand more and more of what is in a successful team,” Betcher said. “It’s intense, the season is very competitive, while we build for four days a week some teams are out there working five days. We’re all really happy to have a chance to compete like this.”

Years ago in 2016, the American Association of the University of Women visited Defer and asked if they wanted to start an all-girls Robotics team to improve gender equity as S.T.E.M. careers tend to be male-dominated. Defer’s principal agreed to create the club and they grew into Grosse Pointe South. Without the visit, there may not have been an all-irls Robotics team.

“They made that decision to improve gender equity in S.T.E.M. careers because they are only about 25 percent female, and they got bigger and we started to evolve into Pierce,” Betcher said. “We’re really proud and thankful for what this club has accomplished and we are looking to invite more and more girls to come and be involved with robotics.”