Spell Bots

All-girl, All-African American Robotics team is breaking barriers from Mari Fagel on Vimeo.

President Barack Obama has said it’s his priority to bring American students to the top of the pack in science and math achievement. However, African-American students, and girls in particular, are still falling behind. According to the U.S. Department of Education, African American students are five times less likely to be college-ready in science and math than white students upon completion of high school.

Yet an all-girl, all-African-American robotics team from Spellman College in Atlanta is breaking that stereotype. The SpelBots have competed in robotics championships around the world and they’re proving that African-American women can also become computer scientists.

On Wednesday, the team visited Howard University Middle School of Math and Science in Washington as part of the first-ever National Lab Day. The nation-wide event was created to raise awareness about the importance of math and science education. The team met with the school’s brand-new all-girls robotics team to teach them a few tricks and inspire them to follow in their footsteps.