12-year-old best friends, coders and budding inventors Riley, Ava and Gwen are working on their submission to the National STEAM Speak Challenge competition: a self-driving car. When their experiment fails, new girl Kat shows up with just the right code to help. Ava and Gwen are impressed, while Riley's confidence is rattled.
Riley, Gwen and Kat are waiting for Ava to bring the rotor core for their robot's mechanical arm. Ignoring her friends' advice and determined to prove herself to Kat, Riley impatiently decides to make one herself. Ava comes to the rescue when the mechanical arm goes out of control and Riley learns a valuable lesson about listening to others.
Kat starts building their robot's A.I. facial recognition system by teaching it the difference between a smile and a frown. Gwen volunteers to keep a straight face for one minute, starting a competition between Ava, Riley and Kat to see who can make Gwen laugh. When Kat wins, Riley begins to feel like she's losing her friends.
Ava and Gwen can't seem to agree on whether the robot's look should be based on function or form. To ease the tension, Riley and Kat design a shell for their robot with all sorts of art supplies: pipe cleaners, tape, hot glue and glitter. Does this mean Riley and Kat are finally starting to get along?
With only 12 hours left to submit their project to the National STEAM Speak Challenge, the Solutioneers are busy uploading data into their A.I.'s software so it can discover trends in their behaviors. After analyzing the data, and to everyone's disbelief, it turns out that Riley and Kat have the most in common.
The Solutioneers make it to the final round of the National STEAM Speak Challenge. Feeling the pressure, Kat quits the team when she finds out they have to present their project in front of a huge crowd. Knowing they can't present without her, Riley overcomes her insecurities and goes after Kat to convince her to remain on the team.