2022-2023 FTC 9820 and 9821: Update #1 Team Progress

Hello there! We are the 2022-2023 Girls of Steel FTC teams 9820 and 9821, all girls robotics teams in the Pittsburgh area sponsored by Carnegie Mellon University. We are also known as Girls of Steel Hypatia and Girls of Steel Hopper, named for famous women in STEM.

FTC stands for FIRST Tech Challenge, one of the programs offered by FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology; a company that strives to inspire young people to go into STEM). This Girls of Steel program is offered to 8th and 9th graders to introduce them to the world of tech. There is no experience needed at all! Most girls who joined the program had no prior experience, and as long as you are interested in STEM, Girls of Steel would be a great fit for you! Our members are: Aika, Brigid, Hanying, Lucy, Rachel, and Sonia, and we have two great mentors, Sarah and Maggie! We are from 4 different schools in the Pittsburgh area.

We started our robotics season on August 25th so we have had 19+ successful weekly meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays so far this year where each of our team members contributes to build and program a robot! We meet at the CMU/Girls of Steel Robotics practice field space located near Bakery Square in Pittsburgh.

Every year the FTC robot is required to complete different tasks. This year, our robot must pick up cones and place them on poles, called junctions, and also scan a code and use the information from the code to go to a specific place on the FTC field. Currently, we have something called a cascading lift and a claw. The cascading lift is made up of four pieces of metal (called extrusion bars). Strings are attached to each, and also around a gear that is attached to a motor. When the motor runs and the string is pulled, the bars move up. Attached to this is our claw. The claw is able to grab the cones around the sides and let them go when we reach the top of the pole, completing the mission!

The competition is obviously very important, but so is another thing: outreach! Outreach is when we reach out to our community to get people interested in STEM and raise money and awareness for our team. Outreach events that Girls of Steel has done or is doing this season include: FLL (FIRST LEGO League Challenge, the FIRST program for 4th-8th graders) mentoring, presentations, events at the Carnegie Science Center and Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium, and more!

In addition to competition and outreach, we’ve all gotten a lot closer and learned valuable teamwork and communication skills. Every Tuesday we participate in an all hands meeting led by the FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition, the FIRST program for 9th-12th graders) team. In this meeting, we are updated on what FRC is doing and get to update them on what we do. This helps us bond with the older girls that we will be on a team with next year. We also participate in a Big/Little program led by FRC, where us younger girls are paired with older girls to do activities. Through this we are able to build teamwork skills with all of our teammates.