The FIRST robotics challenge kicked off internationally in January and the excitement is still intense! As we enter our 12th year of sponsoring FIRST Robotics teams, we love seeing the students learn new skills and succeed in unexpected challenges. And when teams make it to the championships – that’s a bonus! Congrats to the all-female TigerBots of Notre Dame High School in Belmont, Calif. who made it to the world championships in 2018!
Last year’s TigerBots – worked together in answering questions about their remarkable year. Take a few minutes to see what high school students are learning and be encouraged by the futures they have in front of them!
FIRST Challenge 2018
“Entertaining” – The game this year was fun because there were many ways to solve each problem, and for each mechanism there were many different designs possible.
“Inspiring” – Learning about STEM, how to build a robot and what we can do with it, makes me want to focus more on working with new technologies.
“Education” – It was educational and encouraged us to think deeper about different mechanisms. We also had to be creative in a way that opened up an entire new world of understanding about ways to use a linear slide and implement them in different ways in the game.
The Team:
“Sisterhood” – We can rely on each other no matter where we are and what we are doing. We help each other get the job done, and the overall environment is friendly and accepting. The team spent many long nights in the shop before competitions to get the robot and drivers ready, it gave us a better understanding on how to work with our different styles, personalities and motivations to work together as a team.
“Hardworking” – We estimate that this year we have spent over 600 hours working together as a team. Working to build a successful robot and learning how to collaborate, set a strategy, and problem solve.
Strengths:
“Connections” – We enjoyed working with our community and introducing kids to STEM and what it takes to be on a FIRST team. Also, reaching out to the industry to build meaningful relationships, learn from experts in the engineering field, and learn about different career options was a great way to connect.
“Teamwork” – FIRST encourages gracious professionalism and we took this to heart and welcomed everyone onto the team.
“Supportive” – We support each other and other teams in the FIRST community. We helped San Mateo High School start a team this year by sharing our knowledge and tool shop with them.
Challenges:
“Eye Opening” – The challenges help bring new opportunities to collaborate with other teams and encourages us to never give up. Also, we learned that by collaborating as a team we could do more together to solve the problems with our robot. It was amazing to see us go from hearing about this year’s game to getting the robot working to making it to Worlds.
“Time” – It has been hard to schedule the time to get everyone together as a team to get the work done. We met twice a week, but in the weeks before competitions we were in the shop most nights. We have had to learn better time management skills to help us manage our time in robotics, as well as school work and other activities.
“Reliability” – When we are planning out the season we are managing our time and the build, but at competitions we face challenges with unexpected events. We could have a perfectly good working robot that suddenly breaks, wheels fall off, and the arm mechanism doesn’t work – everyone on the team starts madly working together to fix it, solve the problem and get back on the field. Reliability of the robot and the team are key to winning.
Goals:
“Engineering” – We wanted to learn how to be more successful with our skills and robot design. We gained mentorship from NASA, had a new Software Mentor and a System Engineering sharing their expertise with us.
“Outreach” – We wanted to make connections within the engineering industry and we wanted to continue our community outreach within our school and with new groups such as the girl scouts.
“Super Regionals” – We wanted this season to be the season where we reached Super Regionals and tried our best to make this goal a reality. We reached Super Regionals and surpassed our goal by reaching Worlds in Houston this year.
You can follow the TigerBots at https://www.facebook.com/tigerbots7593/ or https://www.instagram.com/ndbtigerbots/.
Last year’s TigerBots – worked together in answering questions about their remarkable year. Take a few minutes to see what high school students are learning and be encouraged by the futures they have in front of them!
FIRST Challenge 2018
“Entertaining” – The game this year was fun because there were many ways to solve each problem, and for each mechanism there were many different designs possible.
“Inspiring” – Learning about STEM, how to build a robot and what we can do with it, makes me want to focus more on working with new technologies.
“Education” – It was educational and encouraged us to think deeper about different mechanisms. We also had to be creative in a way that opened up an entire new world of understanding about ways to use a linear slide and implement them in different ways in the game.
The Team:
“Sisterhood” – We can rely on each other no matter where we are and what we are doing. We help each other get the job done, and the overall environment is friendly and accepting. The team spent many long nights in the shop before competitions to get the robot and drivers ready, it gave us a better understanding on how to work with our different styles, personalities and motivations to work together as a team.
“Hardworking” – We estimate that this year we have spent over 600 hours working together as a team. Working to build a successful robot and learning how to collaborate, set a strategy, and problem solve.
Strengths:
“Connections” – We enjoyed working with our community and introducing kids to STEM and what it takes to be on a FIRST team. Also, reaching out to the industry to build meaningful relationships, learn from experts in the engineering field, and learn about different career options was a great way to connect.
“Teamwork” – FIRST encourages gracious professionalism and we took this to heart and welcomed everyone onto the team.
“Supportive” – We support each other and other teams in the FIRST community. We helped San Mateo High School start a team this year by sharing our knowledge and tool shop with them.
Challenges:
“Eye Opening” – The challenges help bring new opportunities to collaborate with other teams and encourages us to never give up. Also, we learned that by collaborating as a team we could do more together to solve the problems with our robot. It was amazing to see us go from hearing about this year’s game to getting the robot working to making it to Worlds.
“Time” – It has been hard to schedule the time to get everyone together as a team to get the work done. We met twice a week, but in the weeks before competitions we were in the shop most nights. We have had to learn better time management skills to help us manage our time in robotics, as well as school work and other activities.
“Reliability” – When we are planning out the season we are managing our time and the build, but at competitions we face challenges with unexpected events. We could have a perfectly good working robot that suddenly breaks, wheels fall off, and the arm mechanism doesn’t work – everyone on the team starts madly working together to fix it, solve the problem and get back on the field. Reliability of the robot and the team are key to winning.
Goals:
“Engineering” – We wanted to learn how to be more successful with our skills and robot design. We gained mentorship from NASA, had a new Software Mentor and a System Engineering sharing their expertise with us.
“Outreach” – We wanted to make connections within the engineering industry and we wanted to continue our community outreach within our school and with new groups such as the girl scouts.
“Super Regionals” – We wanted this season to be the season where we reached Super Regionals and tried our best to make this goal a reality. We reached Super Regionals and surpassed our goal by reaching Worlds in Houston this year.
You can follow the TigerBots at https://www.facebook.com/tigerbots7593/ or https://www.instagram.com/ndbtigerbots/.
