The Girls of Steel have once again started off strong with our first week of build season! Kickoff went great! Girls of Steel had an alum, Naoka Gunawardena, speak at kickoff and we watched the FRC Destination:Deep Space game videos! (You can watch Naoka at about 34:30 on the video.)

Brainstorming for this season started immediately after the kickoff event. A few of our alums were there with us. Everyone was extremely excited for the upcoming six weeks!

All girls are now preparing to compete and creating the best competition robot. The girls now have meetings on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. There is no time put aside for business during build season, so other than the All Hands Meetings on Tuesdays, all time goes solely to working on the robot! The members now have a requirement of about 10 hours a week and 75 hours throughout the whole build season, up to the Greater Pittsburgh Regional.

Our first week was extremely successful and all the girls worked very hard. Much of the time was dedicated to planning and brainstorming, along with some specific jobs in each sub team. The team needed to prioritize and decide what tasks the robot is going to be accomplishing for this seasons game. This week, the programming team transferred a new software code called VS code and started working on chassis and the climber code.  For the climber code, they started programming the pistons so they could move simultaneously or individually. Design team started CADing different parts of the robot and the pistons and also did some programming. Mechanical girls put a chassis together and brainstormed for the collector. They also prototyped a pivot arm, collector arm, and climber. Lastly the electronics team started a practice electronics board and started planning out layout for the E-board. Overall, numerous tasks were accomplished and it was a fantastic way to start off the season! 5 more weeks! Everyone, keep working hard!