The week of Dec. 12th brought us to the end of preseason 2017-2018!! The Girls of Steel team has accomplished so much these past 11 weeks. The Awards team was able to write all of their essays for the different awards. The Finance team worked on many fundraisers, such as the Sarris Candies Holiday fundraiser, and created new fundraisers, like the “We Can Do It” t-shirt fundraiser.

This preseason, the Media team focused on branding through the social media accounts, making informational videos, and through these blog posts. Both Finance and Media collaborated together on the “We Can Do It” t-shirt.

The Media team also filmed the video for the Chairman’s Award and the crowdfunding campaign. Our communication this preseason was significantly better because we implemented Slack, which allowed all of the Girls of Steel to receive updates very quickly, and contact one another and mentors when needed. One major achievement has been that the Girls of Steel exceeded our crowdfunding goal of $10,000 and raised $10768!

Not only were the business teams successful during preseason, but a lot of progress was made towards the robot. We would have our all-hands meetings on Tuesdays focused on business subteams and technical training for newer girls, and then Tech meetings on Thursdays. We started off the season with shop safety training to make sure everyone would be safe when working in the highbay. Most Thursday meetings involved the Electronics team and the Mechanical team building a shooter mechanism designed to shoot fuel into the Steamworks high goal. The shooter was nearly finished and was shared during our Holiday Party on December 16, 2017 to celebrate the end of preseason.  With help from our FLL and FTC teams, we collected, wrapped, and donated over 100 holiday gifts for the Bethlehem Haven women’s shelter.

One of the main goals during preseason was to make sure all new girls and 2nd year returning girls knew the basics of each technical subteam. During the last weeks of preseason  girls had training in the design, mechanical, electronics, and programming teams in order to gain experience in preparing for Build Season.

We also had two guest speakers during the last week of preseason: Professor Jessica Hodgins and Professor Henny Admoni.  Both were awesome and inspiring speakers.

Overall, preseason was very productive and the Girls of Steel are ready to take on the 2018 FIRST Power Up Build Season that begins on January 6, 2018. Happy New Year!