The Girls of Steel – a competitive FIRST team in Pittsburg, PA – is on a mission to engage more young women into engineering. Over the last few years, we’ve heard what it’s like to be part of an all-girls robotics team and spoke with team’s mentors. Now, we’re following up with the team to talk about their successes and developments since being listed in our 25 Women in Robotics list.
I’m Molly Urbina, a member of the FIRST Team #3504, Girls of Steel. Every year our team makes a comic strip about the past year’s robot to show other girls just how much fun competing in FIRST can be. This year’s comic is about our robot Atlas! From this comic, you will be able to see how it works and what FIRST is.
The Girls of Steel are in the stands during the awards ceremonies at the Buckeye regional, and we’re waiting to see if our team will make it to the Championships. It has been a long build season; we spent a lot of time building, programming and wiring our robot, preparing it for competition. We wrote essays for awards, created information packets, and participated in outreach events. We are silent as the announcer describes the winning team with an overview of what it has accomplished … 22 different schools … an internship program … Chinese summer camps — it has to be us. Then he announced the winner – it IS our team. We scream in joy! We’re going to the FIRST Robotics Championships in St. Louis!
This photo essay documents the Girls of Steel as they built their newest robot for the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) division. Teams are given the parameters of the game and have just six weeks to build their robot.
Being a member of FIRST Team 3504, The Girls of Steel, has been an amazing experience: I have built robots with my teammates, gone to international competitions, and have had great time. We recently competed with our latest robot, E.V.E., and my friends and family have been asking “How does it work?”. This comic explains it all – I hope you enjoy it! (You can download a PDF of the full comic here.)
The Girls of Steel – a competitive FIRST team located in Pittsburg, PA – is on a mission to draw more young women into engineering. We’ve already heard what it’s like to be part of an all-girls robotics team, we now catch up with the team’s mentors, Theresa Richards and George Kantor, to hear about their roles in inspiring and mentoring the team. Here’s what they have to say …
The Girls of Steel – a competitive FIRST team located in Pittsburg, PA – is on a mission to draw more young women into engineering. We asked team members Mackenzie Ferris (16), Sylvie Lee (16), Molly Urbina (15), Lynn Urbina (17), and Becca Volk (15) to give us the inside scoop of what it’s like to be part of an all-girls robotics team. Here’s what they have to say …
It’s the end of the competition, and we’ve worked hard to get here: the long nights in the machine shop, drawing 3D models, writing essays for awards and fixing our robot whenever it breaks down. But now it’s the awards ceremony at our regional, and we’re waiting to see if our team will make it to the Championships. We stay silent as the announcer describes the winning team with subtle hints. Then he gives a big clue. Wait a minute… it sounds like our team! It IS our team. We scream in joy! We’re going to the Championships in St. Louis!
A high school student by day and a power-tool-toting Maker by night, Lynn Urbina is a member of the Girls of Steel – an all-girl competitive robotics team located in Pittsburg, PA that’s on a mission to draw young women into engineering.
January 18, 2021
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