WID Supports All-Girl Robotics Team.

• Position: News

* Wearing custom-designed t-shirts and beaming smiles, the 12-year-old girls of the "Fusion Four" robotics team from Fairfax County, Virginia, schools accepted a $4,000 donation from Women In Defense to fund their trip to Detroit for a major robotics competition.

The Fusion Four team includes seventh-graders Reira Erickson, Emma Hrabak, Devon Rudolph and Minah Sisco. The group attended the 2019 FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Lego League World Championship in late April. Their division included teams of third- to seventh-graders.

The $4,000 check--which was given in early April--was presented at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia, where Erickson, Hrabak and Sisco are students; Rudolph attends Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax. WID, an affiliate of the National Defense Industrial Association, also provided the team with custom t-shirts.

What makes Fusion Four special is not only their interest in robotics and science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, subjects but also their ambition and initiative, WID Executive Director Rachel McCaffrey said before a crowd of parents and school administrators.

"These girls are the problem solvers," McCaffrey said. "They're not looking to anyone else to solve the problems that face our...