The Girls of Steel spent Week 1 of Power Up! competition season at the Nutter Center at Wright State University for the 2018 Miami Valley Regional!

The Thursday practice matches resulted in a smoking motor and some other mechanical issues, but our pit crew was ready for the tasks and were able to get Clyde ready for Friday’s qualification matches. On Thursday night we had a pizza party and game night with two all girls teams -Murphy’s Outlaws (677) and the Fighting Unicorns (2399). We had a great time getting to know the girls on these awesome teams!

The matches on Friday ran well as GoS kept an undefeated winning streak through the entire day, but the pit crew was certainly kept busy with different mechanical issues with driving and our mechanisms. The pit crew, though, was not only troubleshooting but was also constantly improving the robot. The drive team powered through all of the snags and kept GoS at the very top of the rankings throughout all of the qualification matches. This was to the credit of their quick thinking, skill and ability to strategize with our alliance partners. We finished the qualification matches in third place, which is the best we have ever achieved!!

We came to understand the importance of scouting as we picked alliance partners on Saturday. Our Strategy Team was sure to complete precise scouting throughout the entire competition with the help of our new iPads and a new algorithm – created by Maansi with support from the strategy team – to rank the teams. We were the captains of the second alliance and we chose the best scale robot, 4028 Beak Squad, and a super good switch team, 5811 BONDS, to join us in the elimination matches. We made it all the way to the finals with our alliance, where we eventually lost to the #4 alliance. That means we got second place! This was a huge achievement for GoS as we later found out that we had qualified for the wild card spot to go to the FIRST Championship in Detroit with our alliance partners, The Beak Squad!

We also won the Team Spirit Award thanks to the help of our spirit leads, Mary and Eve, who prepared us with fun signs, cheers and dance moves and to the support of all of the girls in the stands during every match. We also received tons of encouragement from our mentors and parents in the stands, as well as teams 677, 2399, 3260, and 144!!

We had such a great time at the Miami Valley Regional and we are so excited to compete again at the Greater Pittsburgh Regional next week!