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Hoffnagle realized she didn’t have to be a computer whiz to be a part of the team. “Robotics isn’t something you have to be smart to join,” she says. “They will teach you, and I really liked that. Now I encourage other deaf ed students to join.”

Female robotics teams are rare at tournaments. When Vu walks in with her team, they stand out. “I look forward to it,” she says. “They look at us and have low expectations. Then we show up and blow their minds and put them in awe. It is the greatest feeling.”

The girls team advanced to the playoffs at its first tournament.

At competitions, each team receives a scenario and designs a robot to complete several tasks. This may include climbing towers, stacking boxes, shooting balls or any number of actions. Community volunteers and teachers with robotics knowledge assist the teams three to four times a week outside of school hours throughout the year. an organization called Water of Life to raise money and provide clean water in developing countries.

Students write code and maneuver the robot with a remote control, accruing points by completing different actions. The teams also compile a notebook documenting their process and how they would market the robot.

While other schools have labs dedicated to robotics, Woodrow’s team squeezes into tightly packed closets and engineering classrooms and trains with their robots on a hallway course that has to be built and packed up each day.

Teams spread the word by volunteering at local elementary schools and helping their robotics programs. Canyon Kidd, a junior captain, organizes the volunteers who have worked with Stonewall Jackson, Lakewood, Robert E. Lee and Mount Auburn elementary schools.

“We bond as a team and talk about ways we can help the schools,” Kidd says. “The best way to learn something is to teach it.”

The robotics team also helps spread the word about causes with worldwide impact, and they have partnered with

But the school’s new addition, which is set to finish at the end of the next school year, will have 3,500 square feet of space for science and technology, including robotics courses and collaborative workspace. Robotics coaches even helped plan the space with the addition’s architects.

A 2014 Brookings Institution study says that there is a scarcity of specific, high-value STEM skills in this country, but robotics helps prepare students to fill those roles.

Unlike sports, which has limited chances for students to graduate and go pro, robotics can result in multiple opportunities. Garrison says that several Robocats alumni major in related fields then return to mentor the team. “If you go down this trail,” he says, “100 percent of these kids go pro.”