When you spend as much time as the Hospodarsky family does building, coding and fine-tuning your 4-wheel robot, you also take a few minutes coming up with a name for it.

“Edison was the robot our girls operated in Washington, D.C.; but Aurora was the new robot they built and programmed in time for the Utah state finals,” assistant coach and mom Michelle Hospodarsky explains. “And Aurora is the robot they’ll use to compete in the world finals at the end of the month.”

For the fifth consecutive year, the Taylorsville-based team (with a few team members from other parts of the Salt Lake Valley) advanced to the final, championship round, of something called the FIRST Tech Challenge Utah State Championship. It was an all-day event, featuring 32 teams from throughout Utah, held at Hillcrest High School.

The Taylorsville team lost that state championship round on March 7, but still qualified for the FIRST Championship World Finals in Houston, Texas. That competition will be held April 29 to May 2.

And for this brainy group of scholastic overachievers, that won’t even be their longest road trip of the season. In February, the Utah team travelled to Washington, D.C. for another robotics competition – which included a celebrity spectator.

“(Utah) Gov. Spencer Cox was in Washington for meetings and visited the girls briefly at the competition,” Hospodarsky said. “Our robot didn’t perform there as well as we had hoped; but the girls had fun and got to see some of the D.C. sights for the first time.”

First formed seven years ago, the local team calls itself “Cubed ETs.” While Michelle Hospodarsky is the assistant coach, her husband Todd is head coach. The couple’s oldest daughter, Kaia, was a founding member of the team – but has since “aged out,” and gone off to college in Michigan. Daughters two and three, Mara and Bria, are on the team now.

“Our other girls on the team this year include Rosie Lander, a West High School senior and sisters Zinnia and Magnolia Badger, who live in the Avenues and are home schooled, like my kids. Over the years, our team has also included girls from Sandy, West Jordan and a few others from here in Taylorsville.”

The Cubed ETs has been exclusively an all-girls team since day one. The Hospodarskys still have two younger children coming up, including their only son.

“If our son decides he’s also interested in robotics, we might form a second team – or let him join another team,” Hospodarsky said. “But we’re committed to keeping the Cubed ETs an all-girls team. It makes our team pretty unique.”

While the Hospodarsky children are home schooled, Mara and Bria do now have hybrid schedules. They each attend some classes at Taylorsville High. That’s also where Mom graduated, back in 1998.

Four years after that, in 2002, Todd and Michelle each completed Utah State University degrees, in Computer Engineering and Computer Science – not long after their May 2001 marriage.

“The girls’ Utah state finals meet was definitely their best of the whole season,” Head Coach Todd Hospodarsky said. “It’s been fun watching them progress to this point. I know they will be ready for the Worlds in Texas.”

There are way too many rules and nuances to the robotic competitions to explain here. In brief, each competition round is just 2-and-a-half minutes long. The robotic car must perform a set number of tasks on a predetermined track. For the first 30 seconds of each round, the vehicle operates completely autonomously. After that, team members provide robot commands.

This is Mara Hospodarsky’s second year as the Cubed ETs team captain.

“I really enjoy being involved in robotics,” she said. “Building the robot, trying new things with it, fixing problems – it’s all a fun challenge. Participating has helped me learn how to make oral presentations, to explain what our robot is doing. It’s also helped teach me how to write technical information, making it understandable for more readers. Probably most important, I now know how to learn from something failing, and keep going.”

Mara will graduate from Taylorsville High just weeks after returning from the robotics world finals in Texas. She’s currently leaning toward next attending her parents’ alma mater, Utah State, this fall

Ninth grade sister Bria Hospodarsky has a little more time to make that post-THS decision.

“I’ve been on my hybrid school schedule since seventh grade at Bennion Junior High,” Bria said. “I had so much fun at the world finals in Texas last year – so I am looking forward to going back (at the end of this month).”

Robotics teams from virtually all 50 states – and as many as 60 foreign countries, from all over the world – will put their own Edisons and Auroras on the computer courses during the Houston competition.

If you would like to assist the Cubed ETs robotics team from Taylorsville with their Texas travel expenses, they welcome any donations. Find their fundraising page at gofundme.com.