Priya Ray is busy. Her peers are tossing a ball behind her, but she’s not looking back. She spread out several tools on her workspace, and the 16-year-old is fixing a wire connection on a robot.
Ray is a member of the Girls of Steel robotics team. Priya and fellow members of this all-girl team work together inside Carnegie Mellon University’s Field Robotics Center to build robots that perform tasks, like picking items up or tossing them. The girls take their creations and compete with robotics teams from around the world. Priya recently served as the team’s safety captain and was a member of its electronics sub-team.
Priya, who identifies as black and Indian, got involved with the Girls of Steel in 2014 while in eighth grade. She is a rising high school junior. This summer, she is participating in a cancer research internship with the University of Pittsburgh.
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Reach Ryan Loew at ryan@publicsource.org. Follow him on Twitter @RyanLoew.