Girl Powered
thejohnsonfour
Entry ID #: 7005
Created: Fri, Jan 3, 2020 1:12 PM
Girl Power Team 55909B By: Abigail Steinkamp and Lailani Sorenson Girls can do anything! We learned that this year at robotics. Even though our team has both boys and girls, Mrs. Johnson (our coach) made sure we all had a chance to say our ideas. The girls helped run the team! We started our year off with just girls coming to a Girl Powered camp. In past years, the girls usually wanted to do the engineering notebook and not build, so Mrs. Johnson wanted to be sure we had a chance to learn how fun building can be. We were able to build robots in teams of two, so we had a lot of hands on time learning about the robots. This gave us extra confidence to tell the boys our ideas when the rest of practices started. During our regular season, everyone on our team worked together. We had five different people on our team. Lailani sat down and did the engineering notebook. Abigail went down in the morning before school started and built some of the robot. Leo built the two intakes, but then he quit robotics. Will built most of the base. When Landon joined, he set up the field and drove. We all tried different things on the team. Lailani did the engineering notebook, programing and brainstorming. Abigail did the engineering notebook, building and programing. Leo did the engineering notebook and building. Will did the engineering notebook, building and driving. Landon did driving and setting up the field. By trying different areas on the team, we learned we all have different talents but together, we can get stuff done best. We learned that everybody has good ideas. We learned that we need to take help from other team members. We learned that there is a lot of teamwork in a tournament, and you have to go talk to the other teams to make your strategy. You have to figure out what you’re each good at and use that to come up with your plan. We learned that the three teams of our school are stronger if we all work together. Sometimes we couldn’t agree on things on our team. So we would break up and the boys would come up with an idea, and the girls would come up with an idea. When we got back together, we shared ideas and picked the best one. It was usually the girls’ idea, but we tried to use some of the boys’ ideas too so everyone would be included. Will had the idea to do two intakes instead of one and had an idea to put a fifth wheel in the back, so we would not tip over. He also had the idea to add two hooks, so we could flip over a green cube, and then we can reach the high platform to get 20 points. Leo had the idea to put a ramp in the robot so the balls could go in smoothly. He also had the idea to put two intakes in, so we could take in two balls. Lailani had the idea to make the basket door go up and down and our lift. She came up with up with the idea for a flipper for our intake. Abigail had the idea to make the lift and to use chain to make the wheels move. She also had the idea to add a beam in between the chain and the wheel. Teamwork makes the dream work. Everyone was included in the process, both the boys and girls. We are still in the middle of the regular season, but our STEM role models give us a future in robotics to look forward to. Abigail thinks her STEM role model is Mrs. Johnson [our coach] because she encouraged me to try robotics. She encouraged me to take everybody’s ideas, if you liked it or not. Lailani thinks Jaida (her sister) is her STEM role model, because she encouraged me to try robotics. She inspired me to try robotics because she did it and was good at it. Credits: Name of entrants- Abigail Steinkamp and Lailani Sorenson Team number- 55909B Title- Girl Powered