Sophie is a National Honorable Mention recipient. She was a State Winner in 2020. Her passion for programming was ignited in 8th grade when she took a coding class at Macalester College. Since then, she has continued to develop her programming skills through self-study and additional classes at several institutions, learning Java, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, C++, and Python.

This past summer, Sophie held an internship a Land O Lakes working in their IT department. In 2020, she collaborated to develop a Python curriculum to teach young girls. She dedicates her time after school and on weekends to the high school robotics team, Crimson Robotics. She started her robotics career in programming where she worked with Java, but she later transferred to mechanical. Sophie is a leader in the mechanical department and spends her time collaborating with others to build robots. In her CAD Education work, Sophie developed a curriculum to teach CAD to inexperienced teammates. She also previously mentored a FLL team and worked to organize and attend different robotics community events. Sophie is a FIRST Deans List Finalist.

She has been a Girl Scout for 10 years, has earned the Bronze Award, and enjoys volunteering at Girl Scouts and other community events. Sophie is pursuing mechanical engineering at the UMN next year.

Annika is a National Honorable Mention recipient and a State Winner. Annika was a 2021 Rising Star honoree and a 2020 Certificate of Distinction honoree. She began programming robots in elementary school, which sparked her interest in STEM. In high school she began taking more advanced computer science classes as well as engineering classes where she learned Java, Python, C, and SQL. She helps mentor her school’s Girls Who Code Club and is always encouraging the young girls to pursue their interests in STEM. She is a programmer on her school’s robotics team, and on this First Robotics team she is partially in charge of encouraging and helping the team’s inclusion and diversity goals. Annika is a member of Business Professionals of America, where she made it to State three years in a row for SQL database fundamentals as well as Computer Programming Concepts. She also made it to Nationals twice for SQL. She was recognized by Harvard Academies for her academic interests in change and computer science, and took multiple online classes through them as well. Annika will be attending the National Student Leadership Conference for Aerospace Engineering to broaden her knowledge in STEM and try out new areas involving engineering and computer science. She continually looks for new ways to expand her knowledge in STEM, try new experiences, and encourage others who are interested in STEM to pursue their dreams as well.

Grace is a State Winner and National Honorable Mention recipient. She was also a 2021 Honorable Mention recipient. As a founding member and current president of her school’s SWENext Club, she aspires to spark interest and confidence in students pursuing STEM. Grace has helped organize STEM outreach activities with local schools, libraries, and the Science Museum of Minnesota. She has set up, created lesson plans, and taught basic Python and HTML/CSS classes, introducing students to the world of code. Grace is also code lead for her school’s FIRST Robotics Competition Team and has written code in Java and Lua for the robot’s subsystems, autonomous commands, and driving controls.  Additionally, Grace works for an application and web design firm on the transfer of content, customization, and maintenance of websites for non-profit organizations.  She also volunteers as the website administrator for a mental health non-profit organization in the Seattle, WA area and Rutherford County, NC.  Outside of STEM, Grace runs cross country and long-distance track, qualifying for the Minnesota State Championships in both racing seasons.  She looks forward to pursuing electrical engineering in college, focusing on leveraging technology in research and innovation towards a more sustainable future.