The Girls of Steel have just finished the third week of build season, and everyone is still going strong! We have just reached the halfway point! We are coming close to Miami Valley Regional and all the girls are super excited! This week, we made great progress with our usual Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday meetings.

This week we welcomed our junior members for shadowing us. They’ll be shadowing through the rest of build season in addition to getting ready for their rescheduled FTC qualifying competition – now on February 24th.

Several very important tasks were accomplished during week 3. For the design team, the girls redesigned the collector so it has a lighter shape that fits better the shape of the cargo and they cut several collector plates using the CNC. They made version 2 and 3 of the collector and then cut version 2. They also continued working on the CAD for the climber.

The mechanical girls did a great job this week also. For the chassis,  they finished assembling wheels and attached them to the robot, and put the 8020s on. They mounted the drive chain, bearings, and piston bracket. For the collector, they finished connecting the arms to the pivot, revised the design of the new collector, and cut the plates for it. They also attached the pivot to the chassis. Along with working on the robot girls have been building field elements for testing.

Programming girls tested the light sensor, collector, and climber. They wrote codes for the banner light sensor and ball screw climber subsystem. The electronics team finished the CAD for the left and center E-board, figured out how to re-organize wires to make sure they don’t get caught on the climber, started mounting on the E-boards, and tested the electronic solenoids.

        We had a great week and will continue to push through for the last 3 weeks. Great job and thanks to all the mentors and girls who worked hard this week!