*****UPDATE NEWS FLASH******

We are definitely going to World's on April 16th!!! After an amazing State's competition we are now confirmed as going to World's in Houston. Not only did we get to the final on our Consumers Energy Field, but we also won the Regional Engineering Inspiration Award. We are so proud and excited of our amazing students and the great work that they and the mentors have dedicated to this years bot. We have also registered with Benevity, so if your company does donation matching they can find us there!

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Our 40 amazing DHS Dreadbots Robotics students have built an incredible robot for this year's FIRST Crescendo Robotics Competition season. We came third in our first Districts Competition and won the prestigious Engineering Inspiration Award for the first time in 13 years of competing!! This weekend we went all the way to the final in our second qualifier competition which was in Troy. That means we are definitely going to the State Championship and it's looking increasingly likely we will be going to Worlds! We are currently ranked 30th in the state and the top 86 teams go to Houston.

But it costs a lot of money to build the robot and travel to competitions and many of our 40 students and 20 volunteer mentors cannot afford all of the fees. We individually donate more than a third of our annual expenses ourselves each year and we also do all kinds of local fundraising events in and around Dexter to help cover more costs. Local businesses and other generous supporters donate to us each year as well.

Our students and mentors are dedicating up to 7 days a week to the robot design, programming and build, fixing and improving issues as we compete at the district level and learning the most valuable life skills for future careers in STEM fields like mechanical and electrical engineering, business planning, computer programming, vision, CAD design, teamwork and leadership skills and so much more. Together we are Building PEOPLE by Building ROBOTS. Mentors are all volunteers and many have been volunteering for many years after their own student graduated the Dreadbots team. This year we have racked up more than 3,000 hours in volunteer mentor time and over 7,500 in student time - in just a 3 months.

Please help us to raise funds and represent Dexter, for the upcoming State Championship and World Championship competitions. This will help us offer support with hotels, travel and competition fees to bring as many of the team to Saginaw and Houston as possible. Your donation will be tax deductible as we are a 501c3 nonprofit organization. You could also provide a matching donation to help us encourage others to donate.

States Competition is at Saginaw Valley State University up near Bay City from April 4th through 6th.

Competition Fees are $4,000

Hotels are $120 a night which means around $4,800 in cost

Food and drinks is donated and covered by parents

Worlds Competition is in downtown Houston, Texas from April 17th through 20th.

Competition Fees are $5,750

Hotels are around $180 a night which means around $15,000

Flights are around $700 a person - $28,000 for 40 students

Food and drinks are donated and covered by parents.

We need to raise close to $60,000