FIRST Lego League – Mentoring Five Teams
Two Girls of Steel pose with CowGals, the FLL team that they mentor.
Over the summer, Girls of Steel team members and mentors went to their local communities and mentored five FIRST Lego League teams, including a Carnegie Mellon University rookie FLL team. We worked with the teams over the summer and fall to create a robot to compete in the Food Factor challenge and to write a skit that demonstrated an invention to help stop the contamination of food. All five FIRST Lego League teams successfully competed at the Pittsburgh competition, some wons awards, but all gained important exposure to science, technology, engineering and math.
September 2011
Girls of Steel Open House – Growing Our Team
The crowd gathers at the Girls of Steel 2011 Open House.
Over the summer, the Girls of Steel organized a recruiting effort that culminated in our first annual Open House event. Over 150 people, including 80 potential members, attended the event.
The Open House explained the Girls of Steel Robotics Team experience and FIRST Robotics Program founded by inventor, Dean Kamen. The interactive two-hour event offered information about what it is like to be a team member and the many benefits of participating in the FIRST Robotics Competition.
Participants had the opportunity to see robot demonstrations (FIRST Team #3504 and FIRST Team #1708) as well as to visit a variety of Team Experience Stations that detailed the many exciting facets of being a part of the Girls of Steel team.
October 2011
SWAT Symposium in Toronto – Getting More Girls in STEM
On October 22, 2011, three Girls of Steel team members and two mentors traveled to Toronto, Canada to participate in the SWAT Symposium. The girls gave a presentation at the workshop entitled, “FIRST: The Key To Getting Girls into STEM.”
Another all-girls FIRST robotics team, FIRST Team SWAT #771, hosted the SWAT Symposium and invited us to the event to make a presentation on how to get girls interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Our presentation was aimed to co-ed and all-girls teams who wanted to more directly target and include girls on their team.
Mini-Maker Faire – Sharing Inventions
The team demos the 2011 robot at the Mini-Maker Faire.
The Girls of Steel attended the Mini Maker’s Faire on October 23rd at the Children’s museum where people shared a wide variety of handmade items, including robots.
The Faire was not only about robots. One group made abacuses out of beads, straws, and paper, while a different group had a slime machine that spelled words in a drop of slime as the drop fell to the ground. Yet another group covered a made in Christmas lights that lit up as various instruments were played.
The Girls of Steel explained the FIRST program, described our team, and demonstrated our 2011 robot to the attendees. The young students even got the chance to control the robot.
November 2011
Steel City Robotics Alliance Workshop – Building Community
Every fall, the Steel City Robotics Alliance hosts an all-day workshop where teams from all across the Pittsburgh area come together to help each other by giving presentations about their successes. The event is open to all area robotics teams, supporters, and individuals who want to find out more about educational robotics programs. http://www.steelcityrobotics.org/events
In fall 2011, the Girls of Steel students created two presentations for the event – “Fundraising 101” and “FIRST: The Key to Getting Girls in STEM”.
The Girls of Steel gave advice on how to raise the funds necessary to run a successful FIRST Robotics Competition team. We separated the challenge into three parts: Grants, Sponsors, and Fundraisers. We detailed the business tips we had learned along the way and presented easy actions for each team to take in order to succeed in that particular business effort.
In our “Girls and STEM” presentation, we described why it is so important for girls to be introduced to the STEM fields and how FIRST helps. We gave FIRST teams advice about how to attract more girls and recommended ways to incorporate female students into their team.
Girls of Steel mentors gave two other presentations – “Intro to Java” and “Programming Your First FIRST Robot.”
TechNights Event – Inspiring Younger Girls
The girls explain the robot at the TechNights demo.
The Girls of Steel team partnered with the Women in Technology TechNight group to organize an Open House demo. Creative Technology Nights for Girls (or TechNights for short) is a program focused on exposing middle school girls to creative technologies. The organization utilizes computer animation, web design, programming, robotics, and inter
active media to engage a future generation of women in technology.
Similar to our high school Girls of Steel Open House, we gave a brief explanation about the Girls of Steel and introduced the 15 team members participating. Wethen had the seventy attendees rotate through the stations, explaining the different parts of our team and how they worked.
Middle school girls get to drive Crush!
After the stations, the girls went to the demo area and donned safety glasses to watch our drivers show off the capabilities of Crush and Squirt, our first year robots. We then powered down and asked all the girls to come closer as we explained how the different parts of our robot worked and moved. We fielded lots of great questions from the TechNight girls and their parents.
To end the night, all the girls got to drive Crush and Squirt around the demo area under the supervision of our drive team and mentors. Overall, the event was a huge success.
“Many, many thanks for your fabulous presentation to the TechNights girls last evening. We all enjoyed so much visiting the Highbay, hearing about Girls of Steel, seeing all the cool robot stuff there, and of course, getting to drive your robot!” said Mary Widom, head of Creative Technology Nights for Girls. “A lot of preparation and thought went into your presentation, and we’re so grateful to you for all your work to make our visit so special.”
December 2011
Pittsburgh FLL Competition – Helping our FIRST Community
About 15 Girls of Steel students and mentors traveled to the local FIRST Lego League competition on December 3rd, 2011. They volunteered as judges, worked as schedulers, helped set up and break down the event, and aided the five Girls of Steel mentored teams competing at the event.
The Girls of Steel volunteer at the local Pittsburgh FLL competition.
“It was really amazing to see how much the FIRST organization impacts kids at such young ages – I even saw 1st and 2nd graders with their hands on the robots,” explained McKenna, a first-year Girl of Steel. “I wish that I had gotten involved with FIRST sooner!”
The Girls of Steel were thrilled to be able to help foster STEM interest even earlier by participating in this event, as well as mentoring the students.
“I swear I learned as much – even more – than the kids on the team that I mentored did,” said Jaden, a second-year Girl of Steel who mentored the rookie Carnegie Mellon University FLL team.
We hope to continue our support of this event and look forward to being involved next year.
Children’s Institute
The Girls of Steel participated in a robot demonstration at the Children’s Institute. Two team members and a mentor showed Crush to the students and teachers of the Day School.
The kids were very excited to see a robot in action, and participated heavily in a discussion. One student was appropriately wearing a robot shirt, and another said they wanted a robot for Christmas. The students drove the robot with the assistance of our team members, and threw tubes into the “field” for the robot to pick up.
Toys for Tots
The girls demo the robot at the Pittsburgh Toys for Tots drive.On December 17th, we packed up our robot and demo equipment and traveled to a Toys for Tots distribution location in Pittsburgh.
While the people waited in line, we handed out cool STEM trivia attached to pieces of candy. We had a table with robot coloring pages where the kids drew while they waited.
While kids picked up their presents, they were able to enjoy watching—and test-driving—the robots. We demoed in the morning.
FIRST® Team #1708 – AMP’d Robotics, demoed their T-shirt launcher robot. The Girls of Steel hope we made the kids’ holiday season a bit more fun while also piquing their interest in STEM.
January 2012
Girls of Steel and Carnegie Mellon University provided an open Regional FRC® Practice Field for the 2012 FRC game Rebound Rumble from early January through April 21,2012. In general, the practice field was open on Thursdays from 5 pm to 8:30 pm and on Saturday s from 11 am to 3 pm. Teams were welcome to come to the field with or without their robot. Drinks and snacks were provided. A Week Zero event was held the weekend before bag & tag and an end-of –season scrimmage was held on April 21st.
January 25, 2012 Girls of Steel Mentor presented a talk – “Building Robots: Building Futures”- about FIRST robotics and using Arts & Bots robotics kits at The Ellis School to the Fox Chapel Rotary Club in Fox Chapel, PA.
February 2012
February 18, 2012 Week Zero Event at the Ellis Armory Robotics Practice Field. On the final Saturday before Bag and Tag last year, we hosted a “Week Zero” event for area FRC® teams to come and participate in a mock FIRST robotics competition complete with a FIRST official. The event served as valuable practice time for Pittsburgh teams, as well as sowing the seeds for the FIRST principles of coopertition and gracious professionalism®.
March 2012
March 13, 2012 AAUW Young Women’s Recognition Night: Girls of Steel displayed a table with 2011 robot “Crush”, Girls of Steel posters, and FIRST materials. Two Girls of Steel were invited to participate on a panel of women in STEM fields for a group of about 30 middle school girls who were recognized by their teachers for their aspirations and aptitude for STEM.
April 2012
April 2, 9, and 16, 2012 Robo Club at CMU for boys and girls interested in LEGO robotics. The girls helped about 5 to 7 children each week.
April 21, 2012 Robotics Scrimmage at the Catalyst Building Practice field for Pittsburgh area FRC teams including the FRC 2399 the Fighting Unicorns from Cleveland, OH whom Girls of Steel met at the Queen City Regional Competition.
April 30, 2012 Girls of Steel appeared at Carnegie Mellon University’s Women@SCS TechNights (Creative Technology Nights) and gave a talk about FIRST and Girls of Steel to about 25 middle school girls and their parents.
May 2012
May 9, 2012 Girls of Steel hosted an electronics activity with batteries, wires, and light bulbs at Assemble’s Circuits and Contraptions Learning Party. FIRST materials and Girls of Steel posters were displayed.
June 2012
The week of June 18 – 22, 2012 Girls of Steel team members ran a LEGO Robotics summer camp called “Robolympics” for 5th and 6th grade girls at The Ellis School.
July 2012
July 11, 2012 Girls of Steel hosted a table at Assemble’s Planet Parade Learning Party where children were encouraged to make sketches of their favorite robot. FIRST® materials were displayed.
