Girls of Steel FTC 9820, 9821, and 9981: 2020-2021 Update #2

Welcome to the Girls of Steel FTC teams’ updates about the rest of our season. In case you missed it, here’s our first blog.

Unfortunately we were unable to do any hands on work with robots during the 12 weeks of preseason, but we still had a great time. We divided into 3 teams and learned while collaborating on Zoom and Discord. Each week we attended all hands meetings with the FRC team and presented slides with summary of our accomplishments from the prior week and plans for that meeting. It was a good way to help us connect with each other. We also participated in Big/Little bonding activities with the FRC girls. Finally, we’d like to say thanks again to our awesome mentors: Maggie and Somadatta, FRC girls who are the FTC Liaisons, along with Michelle, a senior in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon and Sarah, a software engineer. Next up is shadowing FRC girls while they complete the FIRST at Home challenges and continue with tech meetings.

FTC 9820 Girls of Steel Hypatia

Our members are Emily F., Emily S., Hannah, Jessie, and Madison. This season was unlike anything we have experienced before. Not only were we learning virtually, we were still able to make new friends and learn new knowledge while also having fun. We met together in Zoom and Discord to try new programming and building techniques. Some of the websites we used include Scratch and Onshape. The FTC season was hard at first, but we soon worked together to solve any problem that came our way.

FTC 9821 Girls of Steel Hopper

Our team- Dusty, Kelly, Maeve, Rayna, and Shree- had a very enjoyable experience this season. We all found each topic to be interesting and engaging. Despite the fact that we were limited by the pandemic, we were still able to find different ways to interact virtually each other on Zoom and Discord. We built LEGOs and robots on Onshape, solved math problems using code, and made our own projects on Code.org. Overall, this experience was incredibly exciting and a good way for us to connect as a team.

FTC 9981 Girls of Steel Lovelace

The Lovelace team’s season was filled with many great experiences and, of course, a lot of fun. Though we weren’t able to meet in person due to the restrictions of the pandemic, we still managed to learn a lot about FIRST robotics, the CS field, and each other. Our mentors, Michelle and Sarah, found effective and enjoyable ways to introduce new concepts to us. From projects on Code.org to designing on Onshape, we were involved in a variety of remote programming activities that we could work on together through Discord voice channels. All in all, the 2020 FTC season was an amazing way for us to collaborate and learn more about our interests in robotics.

Here are selected examples of slides presented by each FTC team at all hands. They summarize our meetings from Week 6 to Week 12. Fun themes included for most!

10/27/20 Week 6: