On November 16th, 2016, Tom Pope (GoS mentor) and Anne Kailin “AK” Northam (GoS student) flew to Shenzhen, China for a weeklong trip to promote FRC in the area. They were accompanied by Tao Lin, a mentor of team 6414 Voyager from the Shenzhen Foreign Language School. Around half of Voyager’s students came to the GoS Feiyue summer camp held at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute in 2016 and were inspired to make their own team back home. The trip to China was partially to build relations with this team and help them…continue reading →

Here's to a great way to end 2016 - A post by Tom Fisher, founder of Invest Smarter Publishing. Technology has afforded us to make our everyday lives easier. We no longer have to wait for days to communicate with our friends and relatives who are on the other side of the world. We can go shopping for things we want without having to get up from our seats in front of our computer. All these things and more cannot be possible without the people behind these innovations in technology, particularly the women…continue reading →

It’s the last meeting before Kickoff! A little snow and a cold going around kept more girls from the meeting than usual so everyone that could make it picked up the slack. To start off, everyone collected their Sarris Candies fundraiser orders and then got down to business. As usual, we went through the all hands slides and discussed the GoS pitch that the outreach sub team has been working hard to perfect.   Everyone knows their responsibilities and got diligently to work. Each of the technical sub teams: programming, design, mechanical and electrical put the…continue reading →

Preseason meeting number ten (12/6/16) went splendidly, we have only one more mandatory meeting for all the girls after today. We cannot believe that build season is just a couple weeks away. The meeting began with the All Hands Meeting, at which we went over the All Hands Slides. We went over the agenda, schedule, and tasks that we need to accomplish today. We also talked about our pipeline. After that, we then focused on the mission statement and the team goals, as usual. We were reminded of some exciting, upcoming outreach events.…continue reading →

Our ninth Girls of Steel Preseason meeting (11/29/16) went well. Every girl is working hard and contributing to the team, we have three more weeks (including this week) to get everything done before build season. We began the meeting with our All Hands Meeting (all hands slideshow link), where we all convened and went over the agenda for the FTC and FRC girls. We then got our question of the week - Who can name 3 of our sponsors?- and learned about some of the many sponsors of the Girls of Steel. We also…continue reading →

Preseason meeting #8 (November 22nd) was great!! Only about six more weeks 'til build season and everyone is working hard! We started off with our All Hands meeting, as always, and we went over the agenda for the day, and answered a "question of the week". Then we continued breaking down the new Girls of Steel mission statement to understand what it really means. We also went over one of our team goals - to personally reach 5000 people - and learned that we have already reached 15% of our goal!!! We also…continue reading →

Preseason Meeting #7, November 15th, went just as great as the rest, We are gliding through pre-season smoothly, and getting closer build season! Just as always, we began with our All Hands Meeting where we went over the agenda for the day and question of the week. Then we did something different, we broke down the mission statement - Empowering women and girls to pursue STEM by exemplifying female success in robotics - and talked about who it was for and how we can accomplish it. We went over some goals and reminders…continue reading →

The 6th preseason meeting of Girls of Steel, November 8th, went very smoothly as always!  The girls came back with determination to get some work done!  Emotions are high for all of the Girls of Steel this meeting, as it is election day! And everyone is watching the polls closely. We started off our meeting with the All Hands Meeting, where we went over our agenda for the evening. There was another interesting question of the week, and we reviewed our mission statement once again.  We proceeded to go over team goals (we’ve…continue reading →

Starting off discussing our goals and mission statement, our 5th meeting (November 1st) went extremely well! As a reminder, our dues were due the 31st, so if you did not get them in, please send them ASAP. We got great updates on our FLL teams and our outreach goal to reach 5,000 people personally is over 10% there! Our Sarris Candies fundraiser also started today, so if you have an interest in selling candy, talk to our finance leader! Also, we have welding every Thursday and a self defense class coming up on…continue reading →

The fourth Girls of Steel Preseason Meeting on October 25th (or the fifth if you count the New Girl Orientation Meeting) went spectacular! The girls came back ready to work! We started off with our weekly All Hands Meeting, where we went over our agenda for the day and our team goals and principles. We went over some reminders and upcoming outreach events, as usual. We were also told that we have completed more than 10% of our outreach goal already - we’ve interacted with more than 500 people since the start of…continue reading →

Our third Girls of Steel preseason meeting, October 18, 2016, was a very successful one! First, the team started off the meeting with our usual All Hands Meeting, we went outside to take some great team pictures, and played a game during Triad Fun Time. The FTC girls attended the All Hands Meeting, and then left to work on their own tasks. Then everyone split up into the business sub-teams, and lastly, had technical time. In the All Hands Meeting, the we began with the question of the week, then discussed the goals…continue reading →

It's another fun meeting on October 11, 2016 for the Girls of Steel Robotics team! First, as always, we started with the All Hands Meeting, then went onto technical time, and finally business time. The team decided to have triad fun time every other week, so we could fit in 30 minutes just for triads without feeling rushed. An important difference about the meeting today was that each girl who attended the meeting must attend a Shop Training session with our mentor Chuck for 30 minutes. The FTC girls attended the All Hands…continue reading →

Our second meeting (the first official preseason meeting on October 4th) went phenomenally, and most girls attended and with bright happy smiles! The meeting started with our traditional All Hands Meeting, then 2 rotations, business time, and finally triad time. The FTC girls attended the All Hands Meeting, started working on completing the tasks for their team, and joined in at triad time.   The All Hands Meeting went very well. Our business leader Alexa discussed the expectations and lots of the leaders game miniature presentations on what their sub-teams do. Also, the…continue reading →

The Girls of Steel started the 2016- 2017 season off with a bang!  The first meeting was the "New Girl Orientation Meeting" on September 27th for all new girls - new junior members, new high school members, and former junior members who are now joining the high school team - began with a quick introduction including who the team is and what we embody. FIRST was discussed extensively as well as the past and future that will affect the team. Then, the new girls broke off to start team bonding with returning girls.…continue reading →

Last month we packed up our robot and traveled to Saint Louis for the FIRST World Championships in St. Louis, April 27th to April 30th. St. Louis was filled with fun and excitement. We shipped Byte off through FedEx weeks before and our amazing mentor Chuck drove a van all the way to Missouri full of our tools so all of our stuff was there when we arrived. The team’s bus left early in the morning on Wednesday, April 27th and drove through the day getting settled in St. Louis by the afternoon.…continue reading →

It has been a week full of recovery after one awesome regional - the week 5 Queen City Regional in Cincinnati, OH, March 30-April 2, 2016.! Thank you to the sponsors, mentors, and parents who enable us to participate and learn in the wonderful program of FIRST.  This year, our robot has truly performed amazingly and we could not be any more thrilled.  One reason for this is the incredible schedule we were able to keep during the build period.  The drive team was able to practice with a working robot on a…continue reading →

We recently took our 2016 robot, Byte, to the Greater Pittsburgh Regional Competition at California University of Pennsylvania, March 10-12, 2016 to compete in the FIRST Stronghold Challenge!   It was a great experience that was fun and educational at the same time. New girls and returning girls alike were able to discover the fun of seeing Byte in action after 6 weeks of building. Our team makes sure that all of the girls are given the opportunity to work in the pit and scout. It is made sure that there is a…continue reading →

On Tuesday, March 1st, we kicked off competition season in an exciting way - a meeting with SWE- Society of Women Engineers from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).  SWE visited us at CMU to talk with GoS and offer advice and counsel about being women in STEM. We met in small groups with several CMU students from a wide variety of engineering fields.  After about five minutes, the  CMU students switched to a new group. That way they were able to meet with all of us. Here are some quotes from Girls of Steel…continue reading →

This rookie FTC season was one with many different challenges and learning opportunities. We learned about the different obstacles of being a FIRST team and learned how to overcome them as an individual and as a team. Mentoring FTC was new for all the Girls of Steel students and mentors, but we got a lot of help along the way, especially from Bhargavi and Austin. Most of the 16 girls started out in October with no knowledge of programming, designing, or building a robot. Therefore, the season started with learning the basics. We…continue reading →

On Tuesday, February 16th, we had our junior members shadow some of our older high school members around for the night as girls worked on the two robots, Byte and Bug. “Shadowing a girl has significantly developed me as a FIRST participant and this experience will further me in the coming years,” said junior member, Kavya.  Now that the FTC season has ended, the junior members will be shadowing every Tuesday. On Wednesday night our drive team met at the practice field for their regular meeting and a group of Cub Scouts from…continue reading →

During the 5th week of build season, we made a lot of progress on our robot, Byte.  Now, we are just doing everything we can to prepare for Bag & Tag on Tuesday, February 23rd. Thankfully, we are on schedule! In preparation for the Week Zero Scrimmage on February 20th, we have been working very hard on making reversible bumpers, a feature we have never attempted before. The electronics team has constructed a board out of polycarbonate for the second robot, and have begun to mount and assemble pieces onto it. Also in…continue reading →

For the first time in Girls of Steel’s history we are still on schedule at week four! Our drive team is going to be able to practice before bag and tag and they could not be any happier.  Speaking of drive team practicing, they will be doing so at our team’s practice field. The practice field is an open space and other FRC teams are invited to come test their robots! Thank you to all of the mentors and parents who have worked to create such a wonderful replica of the 2016 field…continue reading →

Time flies when you are incredibly busy!  It is week three and we are halfway through build season, can you believe it? We can’t either, there is still a lot of work left to be done but we are making headway! This week we had a huge success and were able to see our robot performing in real time. We are thrilled to say that we are meeting our week 3 goals and mostly on schedule other than a few hiccups. This week we picked drive team roles. Also, we came up with…continue reading →

Our second week of build season was very eventful and lot of progress was made. The programming girls got a lot of work done; they managed to finish coding all the subsystems. They also started autonomous and coding for the automated capabilities of the buttons to make it easier for the drive team to control the robot. That’s was Girls of Steel is all about! Working as a team and trying to help out the other subteams, and making this process as simple as possible for others. The girls from electronics finished the electronics boards just for testing the…continue reading →

Our first week of build season, beginning with kickoff on January 9th, was action packed and full of fun!  This year our  student leaders and mentors did a great job of keeping everything simple and on track.  By the beginning of our Monday meeting on January 11th, our design concept was decided and we began prototyping!  There was a flurry of excitement from everyone as we gathered to discuss what our plan was as decided on Sunday, January 10th when the student leaders and seniors met to review the ideas collected at the…continue reading →