Out of Tesla STEM Choice High School Quantum Robotics Club’s seven teams, six made it to the State Championship, with four qualifying for the quarter finals.

Only one team, 917F Quantum DOUBLE qualified for the 2018 VEX Robotics World Championship in Louisville, Kentucky. They qualified once by getting to the semi-finals, and again by winning the Excellence Award, the most prestigious award in VEX, citing an innovative design, a detailed engineering notebook, robust skills, high performance in competition, and more.

This World Championship will host a total of almost 600 high school teams from every state in the USA and from around the world, including Canada, China, Japan, and more – over 3,000 participants in all, and it aired in the past on CBS.

Currently, the team is running a fundraiser to help pay for their trip to the world championships. To participate in this event, the team of seven students and one adult chaperone will have to pay for the shipping of the robot, tools and spare parts; flights to and from Kentucky; a five-night hotel stay; meals; and the nearly $1,000 competition registration fee.

The team estimates this will cost more than $9,000 in total. According to club organizers, the team’s families have already invested almost the same amount since the team formed three years ago, paying for robot parts, fees, competition and travel. The go fund me campain can be found at http://ow.ly/LtR630jHlR5.