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Who Are We?

The Go Go Girls is a First Lego League (FLL) robotics team of six 11 and 12 year old girls who attend Bluenose Academy (Lunenburg) and Bayview Community School (Mahone Bay). The group participates in the First Lego League® (FLL), a program designed to empower kids (ages 9-14) to be young leaders and innovators.

This group of six talented and driven girls, is a perfect blend of competitiveness and camaraderie. Despite their fierce determination to win, their sense of fun shines through in every challenge, always celebrating each small victory with high spirits and a lot of laughs. Their focus is unwavering, but it’s their uplifting attitude and respect for everyone at competition that truly sets them apart, making them not just fierce competitors, but amazing humans.

International Robotics Competition

At the 2025 Provincials, the Go Go Girls placed 2nd overall and won the opportunity to compete against 100 top ranking teams from across the world at WAFFLE International Invitational in Worcester, MA (June 13-15). At this event, the Go Go Girls will compete against teams from the Morocco, Norway, Korea, Japan, Nigeria, and more!

We are excited to compete at WAFFLE, but we are equally excited about the platform this will give us to spread our passion for robotics and engineering with other kids, especially girls, on the South Shore of Nova Scotia! The opportunities for youth, and specifically girls, to participate in robotics and engineering are limited in our area.

Innovation and Engineering

For each year’s competition, teams need to choose a real-world problem related to the season’s theme and come up with a solution to that problem. This year’s theme centered around exploring and protecting our oceans. The girls have spent the past year working with two scientists from the Bedford Institute of Oceanography to design a machine that allows for the faster and more efficient processing of ocean water samples. After much testing and many interations, their prototype is ready for testing in the field and will be taken on a 5-week research mission in May 2025.

Girls and Robotics

Despite the importance of engineering and robotics in shaping our future, women remain significantly under represented. In 2019, women made up only 13.9% of the 42,300 engineers in Canada. As girls transition from elementary to middle school, their interest in STEM declines steeply, with only 20% of girls participating by the time they reach 7th and 8th grade. Even when co-ed robotics is an option, girls simply do not join because of the male-dominated environment – even if they are interested in robotics.

Research by the Institute of Engineering and Technology in the UK found that FLL can be particularly important in helping address barriers that hold them back from pursuing STEM activities, studies and jobs. They are encouraged to take on roles and responsibilities that boost their skills and knowledge – showing them that it’s not only something they can do, but something they can enjoy, excel at and pursue in the future.

What is FLL?

Friendly competition is at the heart of Challenge, as teams of students ages 9-14 engage in research, problem-solving, coding, and engineering – building and programming a LEGO® Education SPIKETM Prime robot that navigates the missions of a robot game. As part of First Lego League Challenge, teams also research and develop an innovative solution to a real problem in their community, and their strategic plan for their robot design and game strategy, which they then present to a group of industry judges.

FIRST® Robotics is an all-encompassing program that places a large focus on its CORE VALUES: DISCOVERY, INNOVATION, INCLUISION, TEAMWORK, FUN. The Go Go Girls strive to show FIRST® philosophies of Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition (cooperative competition) in everything we do.

Sharing their Passion

The Go Go Girls want to share their passion for robotics and engineering with other kids, especially girls, on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. They have made presentations to their classes, talked to other kids interested in starting an FLL team and helped facilitate the start of an after-school robotics program.

They have lots of plans and ideas for even more opportunities to share what they love and engage the kids around them in coding, building, problem solving and engineering.

Many thanks to our generous sponsors: