Girls of Steel attended the Week 1 competition Miami Valley Regional, February 27-29, 2020, in Dayton, Ohio, and it was a huge success for the team! All of the girls had an amazing time throughout the weekend! And although we did not make it through alliance selection or receive awards, the team was able to make a great deal of progress to prepare for our next competition, the Greater Pittsburgh Regional at California University of PA, now postponed to a future date.
Technical wise, the robot did very well considering certain aspects were not working as well as we thought they would. The shooting system did very well and was able to score many points throughout the matches, which was a major accomplishment! The autonomous was also very impressive and was able to score three power cells consistently and move off of the initiation line. The hanging system, on the other hand, faced some challenges, specifically with the magnets on the hook and the winch system. As far as the hook is concerned, the magnets fell off more than we desired which made it not possible to climb. The winch was also having trouble, and each match it seemed to be a different problem! Little things inside of the winch were breaking, which meant taking it completely apart multiple times, and motors burned out multiple times for a reason we still don’t know.
Besides technical goals, the team also was trying to win Chairman’s. We didn’t win, but the Chairman’s presenters did an amazing job and so did all of the Awards Team girls. Despite these fall backs, the team still did really well, and we worked on making our robot and team better because of these issues to be prepared for next competition!
While at MVR we celebrated our 10th season in FIRST by sharing treat boxes with every team. We also made and shared friendship bracelets with new friends and old ones and connected with one of our FIRST Ladies regional partners, FRC 7460 Avi and Friends.
Since FIRST events were cancelled after Week 2, Girls of Steel did not attend the Greater Pittsburgh Regional, which was a Week 4 event. We made revisions to the robot including improvements on the shooter, hang system, autonomous, and on the Chairman’s presentation. Starting with the shooter, it was very good, but could still be better. The entire system was rebuilt with these changes: the intake was made wider and the conveyor belts were edited so that balls get stuck less. The hanger system was slightly redesigned. In the new design the hook is permanently attached to the hang arm, which means no more magnets are used at all. The motors in the winch were also switched so that they can hopefully be more reliable. For programmers, the autonomous was improved so that the robot will shoot three balls, drive and collect 3 more, and then shoot them. And finally, the Chairman’s team worked on editing the script by using the feedback that the judges gave after MVR.
The whole team worked extremely hard to make sure that all of this got done, which meant meetings almost every day of the week until we couldn’t!
With everyone’s hard work and dedication, Miami Valley Regional was overall positive for the team and the next competition, whenever it is, will be an even bigger success!