August 2012
August 19, 2012 We kicked off our 2012-13 outreach season with the Explorer Series Event hosted by the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Foundation at the CONSOL energy center that drew over 300 kids! We performed a skit on the importance of safety in robotics, and held a number of demonstrations that educated children on the inner workings of a chassis, taught them the basics of programming, and much more.
September 2012
September 22, 2012 Girls of Steel FRC team 3504 represented FIRST Robotics in Pittsburgh with FRC team 3062 at the Pittsburgh Mini-maker Faire. Girls of Steel demonstrated Watson while lots of children held their arms high to catch a ball. They also hosted a craft activity where children decorated safety glasses to wear while driving the robot. Kristen, a kid maker from “The Make Shop Show” interviewed one of the Girls of Steel. Her video is available here: http://makeshopshow.com/2012/10/23/video-tour-of-pittsburgh-mini-maker-faire-2012/ – more-790
October 2012
October 23, 2012 Girls of Steel participated at the Robot Hall of Fame ® induction ceremony held at the Carnegie Science Center. Girls acted as ushers and presenters for the Robot Hall of Fame inductees – one of these including WALL-E from the popular Disney film.
http://www.robothalloffame.org/news.html
October 26, 2012 Four Girls of Steel and two mentors traveled to Oakville, Ontario, Canada to present a workshop at the FRC team 771 SWAT Symposium on October 27th. The title of the talk was “ FIRST: The Key to Young Women Exploring STEM.”
November 2012
November 10, 2012 Members of the Girls of Steel FRC Team 3504 presented three workshops at the Steel City Robotics Alliance Workshops held at The Ellis School.
Titles of the presentations were: “ FIRST: The Key to Young Women Exploring STEM”, “Fundraising 101”, and “Mentor Tips and Recruiting Girls to FRC Teams.”
Slides and videos are available here:
http://www.steelcityrobotics.org/resources/2012-workshop-presentations
November 19, 2012 Girls of Steel presented a talk about FIRST and Girls of Steel as well as a demo of Watson to the Holy Sepulcher FLL Robotics Club. We inspired the only girl (among many boys) to continue striving to achieve her goals in robotics! Parents, students, and teachers attended.
December 2012
December 1,8, and 18, 2012 Girls of Steel worked with Aubrey Schick and the Romibo Project team to assemble and test Romibo robots. http://www.romibo.org/
December 23, 2012 Girls of Steel, in association with Fox Chapel Area AAUW, volunteered at Barnes and Noble at the Waterworks to wrap gifts.
January 2013
January 3, 2013 Girls of Steel worked with Aubrey Schick and the Romibo Project team to assemble and test Romibo robots. http://www.romibo.org/
January 5, 2013 FRC Kick-off Day Girls of Steel, FRC team 3504 and FRobotics, FRC team 4150 collaborated to provide breakfast snacks and lunch at the FRC kick-off event held at Carnegie Mellon University on January 5th.
Girls of Steel and Carnegie Mellon University provide an open Regional FRC Practice Field for the 2013 FRC game Ultimate Ascent from January 5th through April 20th. In general, the practice field is open on Thursdays from 5 pm to 8:30 pm and on Saturday s from 11 am to 3 pm. Teams are welcome to come to the field with or without their robot. Drinks and snacks are provided. A Week Zero event was held the weekend before bag & tag and an end-of –season scrimmage is scheduled for April 20th.
January 24, 2013 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 Greentree Rotary Club in Greentree, PA.
February 2013
February 16, 2013 was the Week Zero Event. Nine FRC teams participated: 3504, 1708, 306, 3260, 4150, 4467, 4032, 2641, and 2656. About 150 people attended.
February 23, 2013 Girl Scouts Troop #53091 visited the Girls of Steel at Carnegie Mellon University. They were introduced to FIRST robotics, played a game of tic-tac-toe with a computer, toured the machine shop, and took turns driving Watson.
February 28, 2013 Eleven girls from Yeshiva School visited the Regional FRC Practice Field for a tour and a presentation about FIRST robotics and Girls of Steel.
March 2013
On March 2nd, Carnegie Science Center’s Tour Your Future visited the Girls of Steel at Carnegie Mellon University. 4th and 6th grade girls attended. Demos and hands-on activities were part of tour. The girls were introduced to computer programming with a tic-tac-toe game, and they experienced using the band saw and mill, soldering, and then driving Watson, the 2012 robot.
On March 19th and 28th Girls of Steel gave a talk at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. The audience was made up of twenty 70 to 90 year old participants in The LIFE Study. The presentation began with an introduction to FIRST Robotics and Girls of Steel and ended with slides about robots as companions for the elderly as well the roles of robots in health care areas such as pharmacy and surgery. The audience really enjoyed the video of HERB and the Oreos.
On March 20th, Girls of Steel spent the day at Chartiers Valley Intermediate School to present a Science in the Classroom program to the 4th and 5th graders. Two classes at a time settled in their seats in the auditorium for a 30-minute presentation about FIRST Robotics, Girls of Steel and STEM. The sessions included questions and answers, a video of Watson in a competition, and a demo of Watson with students taking turns rolling basketballs to the feeder, shooting, and catching. A total of 20 groups of 4th and 5th graders or about 500 students attended the sessions.
April 2013
On April 22, 2013 the Girls of Steel are scheduled to speak at CMU’s Women@SCS TechNights (Creative Technology Nights) program for middle school aged girls.
http://women.cs.cmu.edu/technights/
May 2013
On May 8th the Girls of Steel are scheduled to present a robot demo at ASSEMBLE’s Robot Learning Party.
June 2013
During the week of June 24-28, 2013 a Girls of Steel team member assists at a LEGO Robotics summer camp at The Ellis School
July 2013
Two NGCP (National Girls Collaborative Project) programs – Girls Bridging Communities and Girls of Steel FIRST Robotics were awarded a mini- grant to collaborate to teach LEGO Robotics to local low-income girls. The camp will be held at The Ellis School.
Feiyue
Over the summer, the Girls of Steel helped run, mentor, and organize a summer camp called Feiyue. Feiyue was a two-week program in which 21 students from all regions of China came to live in the dorms of Carnegie Mellon University. During these two weeks, the students learned and built Arduino robots, which competed in a capstone competition at the end of the camp. They also went on many sightseeing excursions including trips to Falling Waters, the mall, a movie in a park, and a picnic (where they all ate their first campfire S’mores!).
