The whole team is pushing through preseason and making incredible progress on end of preseason technical projects (EOPPs) – more on that below.

Media is thinking creatively to make a robot display to celebrate our tenth year anniversary! They are also working on an info sheet to promote the team and spread information other teams and people may not know. Their other projects include organizing photos and updating the website. 

The inclusion subteam has been planning an outreach event for different schools in our area to reach more people in different communities. This event is a really big deal for the team because we want to reach more people and give new opportunities to girls! The inclusion subteam is new this year and Ella M. described her experience as “Even though I wasn’t here before the inclusion team, so I don’t know specifically what problems created the subteam, I think everything we’re doing is helping.”

The video subteam has been watching other crowdfunding videos and talking about what they would change about their video if they had more time,  as well as talking to awards about what they want to see in the Chairman’s video so they can start putting it together. Video has also been watching old Chairman’s videos and looking at essays to help them to sketch out ideas for theirs. A new FRC member, Ariella, says she really likes being on the video team and said, “I learned how to use the equipment which was really cool; I like being able to change the light settings.” The finance subteam has been researching nonprofit organizations and decided they want to make the holiday donation to a women’s shelter. They also looked at the orders for parts for our robot from last year to calculate the budget needed for supplies, and continued to update the business plan! Lastly, they looked at the requirements for the entrepreneurship award which we hope to win this year at competition! A new member of finance, Tilee M., says, “Everyone should fundraise, go crowdfunding!”  The awards subteam has been really busy with their chairman’s essays, and they talked to video about the chairman’s video to tie it into some of their writing! They’ve also been talking to all the subteams about judging prep to ensure everyone knows what to expect from judges at competitions and how to properly demonstrate the Girls of Steel and everything our team has to offer. Awards has been going over judging materials and everyone has been practicing to prepare for competition. Amanda H. is a new awards member and she says, “I like the awards community and how supportive everyone is, even if you’re not the best at writing, they’ll get you through it!” 

The technical side of the team has also been bustling with end of preseason projects! Each sub team has amazing projects to further everyone’s skills and experience. The design subteam is making a retro robot! They are looking at the game from 2013 and CADing a robot design for the game to give new girls more experience with digital design. The second project is to work with the 3D printer, design girls are learning how to make a 3D model on our current printer so when we get the new one, there’s less of a learning curve. Mechanical is also working with the 3D printer for deeper understanding of making custom parts for the robot! The mechanical subteam is also updating our robot cart and battery cart. During competition and even at CMU, we use these extremely frequently and mechanical girls are making them easier and more efficient to use.

In addition, we have a large cart for assorted supplies to use during competition that we made from a bakery rack! Mechanical is working to fix it as well as making a new chassis project for outreach events. Electronics is working to create the e-board for this new chassis project and teaching new girls all about the wiring and display! They hope to have the pieces mounted in two meetings, as well as making another e-board for programming to use for pneumatics!

Programming is working hard on mecanum drive, which will be extremely helpful for our competition robot. Mecanum drive is more advanced and offers several advantages in certain driving scenarios. The programming subteam has also been using a limelight for vision driving which is very new to the team! The limelight is new to our programming team so they are figuring out how to code and drive with it. All the technical subteams have been chipping away at each end of preseason project, and every little bit of progress is rewarding to the team!

FTC is preparing for competition season, and making amazing progress on their robots! Their first event is a scrimmage on November 23rd. 

They received mecanum wheels and have been attaching them to their chassis! Mecanum wheels allow different movements when driving with little maneuver needed! This will give FTC girls a very strong advantage in their matches, but what really sets the robots apart are their attachments.

The teams are figuring out their linear slide boundaries and how to properly incorporate these into their robots. Each attachment is unique, and the girls are figuring out how their mechanisms are going to fit in. Lastly, each FTC team has been working on their engineering notebooks and blog posts to show the FRC girls their incredible progress and thinking for their robots! FTC is an amazing experience, and Anuva G. describes it as, “FTC is going really great so far and I think we’re off to a great start!”