Highlights of 2023 Summer Outreach

Girls of Steel had a very busy summer as we continued exploring STEM and sharing it with our community. Here are our highlights:

Feiyue

Our Feiyue summer camp, partnered with Carnegie Mellon University, came back after a hiatus due to the pandemic! Alongside another FRC team, 4467 Titanium Titans, we taught 17 high school students from China about all the basics of robotics and the FIRST Robotics Competition using many prototyping challenges, already-built robots to program, and many other activities to learn wiring, building, and machine shop skills. By the end, we had two robots with their own designed mechanisms, one robot wired from scratch and programmed, and two already-assembled robots programmed with autonomous modes and teleoperated mode automation! After the camp, the students joined us at the 2023 Steel City Showdown offseason event described below.

Steel City Showdown

After the two weeks of Feiyue, we hosted our own off-season event: the Steel City Showdown. 15 robots (+ 666 TorMentors which gave mentors a chance to sign up to drive the robot!) competed in a Charged Up ++++++ game. The game included all the elements of the 2023 Charged Up game but also incorporated elements from many of the previous FRC games since 2015 Recycle Rush. Additionally, the Feiyue teams brought three robots to compete with at the offseason event to give them the competition experience and a “capstone project” – two of the teams went on to win the competition along with Titanium Titans! We had a blast and it was a great way to get together with our Pittsburgh friends and meet many more!

Summer Camps

This summer we ran two camps for kids in grades 4 – 8, with about 30 kids in each! The first week, we taught the basics of programming with the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Challenge robot, which gave them the opportunity to learn more about incorporating sensors and more advanced logic into their FLL Challenge code. The second week, we taught the basics of building with the FLL Challenge robots. They learned a lot about new designs to complete some of the harder missions in the game!

Summer Projects

Additionally, we have been keeping ourselves busy with additional projects! We are redesigning our website!!! Some of our members have been working hard this summer on updating our website to make it clearer and an easier resource for everyone. On top of that, we’ve been creating and maintaining our STEM and robotics kits for other outreach events, reorganizing and improving our space, and getting ready for the upcoming 2024 season.