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Major Trouble, a girls robotics team at Grand Blanc East Middle School, qualified for the 2015 VEX Robotics World Championship.

(Kurt Nagl | The Flint Journal)

GRAND BLANC, MI -- When Grand Blanc East Middle School teacher Tim Yauch singled out a small group of girls to form their own robotics team he said he never imagined that the team of rookies would make it to a world championship.

"I've been mentoring robotics since 2002," Yauch said. "I've always had a few girls on a team. They just didn't seem to be able to do everything I knew they could do. Girls are sometimes just faded to the side. I wanted to get them their own little space so they could be successful. They've done that."

The girls are heading to the VEX Robotics World Championship April 15-18 in Louisville, Kentucky, where they will compete against teams from around the world, including Asia and Africa.

"This is really big deal, especially with us being such a small group," said 13-year-old Anna Poirier. The aspiring mechanical engineer said this is her first year participating in robotics.

This was Yauch's first time with an all-girl team which is comprised of three seventh-graders and two eighth-grade students. The nteam is known and Major Trouble.

"I'm really interested in math and science and technology and all that stuff," said Poirier, a seventh-grade student at the middle school who is on the team. "I thought robotics would be something to really get into. I really like problem-solving and my grandpa is an engineer. A lot of things he does and I really enjoyed it. You can expand so much."

More than 800 teams and 15,000 students from the U.S. and more than two dozen countries are expected to participate in the annual four-day competition.

Each team had to win local, regional and state tournaments before they are invited to the world championship.

"I'm pretty excited. I didn't think we would make it this far when we started out," said Josie Anderson, 13. "I'm really excited to see how other teams design their robots. I think it would be fun to see how they build it because we all have the same parts."

Josie, who is also in the seventh grade, said she was encouraged to participate in robotics by Anna.

Major Trouble took home the Excellence Award earlier this school year, which is the highest in VEX competition, qualifying them for the state tournament at Michigan State university in February. They then won the Design Award and qualified for both the national and world tournaments.

Yauch said he started the VEX Robotics teams in 2013. Grand Blanc East Middle School's other teams are Gear Mashers and Trutech.