All-Girl Team from Mesa Receives Honor Award at CREATE Jr. Robotics World Championship
An all-girl robotics team from Mesa earned the top award at this year’s CREATE Jr US Open World Championship, a robotics competition held in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on April 3-5. Alexis Ngo and Tara Yuenyongsgool, eighth-graders at the ASU Prep Poly SPARK Institute, brought home both the Honor Award, the competition’s top award, and second place in the Skills Competition.
Ngo and Yuenyongsgool — the “Maroon” team — spent the past eight months designing, testing and competing together, but their latest robot, affectionately named “Johnny 20,” was built in just a week. The duo has been attending weekly build sessions every Friday morning since August 2024 as part of the Robotics Club, along with additional practice and build sessions every Thursday.
At the three-day CREATE Jr US Open World Championship, Ngo and Yuenyongsgool took Johnny 20 through a series of competitions, including the Skills Competition, in which teams compete to demonstrate their robots’ capabilities.
Johnny 20 is able to pick up as many as three small, semi-flexible, inflated playground balls at a time. The robot’s intake roller is hinged and weighted to guide the balls into a conveyor system. At the top of the conveyor, a flap helps to direct the ball down into the goal. Johnny 20 also features a sophisticated internal suspension system for easier movement and alignment.
Ultimately, Johnny 20’s savvy moves earned the team the title of Skills Finalist, a second-place finish among 45 teams.
The Maroon team — led by ASU Prep Robotics Teacher and Coach Matthew Chicci and assisted by ASU Prep STEM Teacher Crystal Funkhouser — earned even greater recognition with the Honor Award, which is CREATE’s most elite award. The recipient of this award is a team that excels in all aspects of competitive robotics. On field performance, technical knowledge, interviews and interaction with all teams, fans and tournament officials will be taken into consideration in determining the winner of this award. The Honor Award is heavily weighted toward technical innovation, fair play and collaboration.
“Alexis and Tara had to build an entirely new robot to compete in Iowa,” Chicci said. “It took them just over a week to build Johnny 20, and as the results show, they did a tremendous job. We’re incredibly proud of their hard work, and grateful for the support of the Southwest Advanced Prototyping (SWAP) Hub at ASU, which made it possible for them to attend this competition and earn such high honors.”
As the first ASU Prep Academy, ASU Prep Poly opened in 2008 on the ASU Polytechnic college campus with a vision to immerse students in STEM-centered learning starting in elementary grades. The school continues to deliver on its mission of creating successful pathways to college while building a culture of student achievement and collaboration.
In the fall of 2020, ASU Prep Polytechnic launched the SPARK Institute, a Next Education Workforce model for grades 7 and 8, in partnership with Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College.
