Story of Afghan girls is among many at global robotics event

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

WASHINGTON (AP) — An international robotics competition in Washington is in its final day Tuesday with teams of teenagers from more than 150 nations competing. The team getting the most attention at the FIRST Global Challenge is a squad of girls from Afghanistan who were twice rejected for U.S. visas before President Donald Trump intervened. But there are even more stories than there are teams. Here are a few:

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GIRL POWER:

Sixty percent of the teams participating in the competition were founded, led or organized by women. Of the 830 teens participating, 209 are girls. And there are six all-girl teams, including not only the Afghan squad but also teams from the United States, Ghana, Jordan, the Palestinian territories and the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu. Vanuatu’s nickname: the “SMART Sistas.”

Samira Bader, 16, on the Jordanian team, says “it’s very difficult for us because everyone thinks” building robots is “only for boys.” She said her team wants to prove that “girls can do it.”

The three-girl U.S. team includes sisters Colleen and Katie Johnson of Everett, Washington, and Sanjna Ravichandar of Plainsboro, New Jersey. Colleen Johnson, 16, said her team looks forward “to a day when an all-girls team is going to be no more special than an all-boys team or a co-ed team, just when that’s completely normal and accepted.”

The team competing from Brunei is also all female, though a male member previously worked on the project.

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AN UNUSUAL ALLIANCE:

The United States and Russia were on the same side Tuesday. During the fourth round of the competition, the U.S. team was paired with teams from Russia and Sudan to work as an alliance.

The robots all the teams in the competition created are designed with the same kit of parts and do the same task: pick up and distinguish between blue and orange balls. To score points, teams deposit the blue balls, which represent water, and the orange balls, which represent contaminants, into different locations. Each three-nation alliance competes head to head in 2