The Cookie Jar

Hello!
This summer has been fairly productive for the Space Cookies, so far. But, it’s not over yet!

To start off, we had our Sponsor Appreciation Event. At this event, we had approximately 5 of our sponsors come visit us. After arriving, we had time to mingle with our sponsors and catch up. We snacked on yummy food and then had a quick chance to display our robot. [note: it was quite chilly out--I guess, summer started late this year].After demonstrating our robot, we had our awards ceremony where we thanked our sponsors with plaques and goody bags. The event was a great chance for us to meet with our sponsors and for them to catch up with the team’s latest happenings. Last, but not least, Mark came to accept the NASA plaque, along with Wendy and he brought the infamous parrot, Benjamin along. This was definitely an exciting twist for the night! (: Overall, it was a great chance to show our sponsors how much we appreciate all of their support throughout the year. As you all know, we can’t do it without them!

The next day, we had the BAE motorfest. Here, the Space Cookies got a chance to make some chili in a cook-off competition! Being the amazing Girl Scouts that we are, we followed the given directions and made some AMAZING chili. As a part of the cookoff, once again, we had to face off against other FIRST robotics teams. Many of the event’s visitors supported our chili in the judging rounds and we won! Another win for the Space Cookies, both on-and off- the field. The rest of the day we spend demonstrating our robot along with other local FIRST teams. Many visitors came by and asked questions about our robot. The BAE Motorfest was a great place to playfully compete with other teams’ robots, support our great sponsor: BAE, and spread the word of FIRST.

After a busy weekend, the Space Cookies got a chance to relax and enjoy their summers. But, the robotics world never takes a break for long! So, starting this past week we’re back on with our weekly team meetings. In addition, a couple of Space Cookies have been spreading the FIRST message and their love for helping others. Also this past week, one of our girls (along with one of our team alum!) attended a low income summer school and taught about 80 fifth and sixth graders about the world of robotics. Through a series of experiments and a chance to explore FLL robots, these children were truly immersed into the world of exploring science and technology.

Stay tuned for our next blog post! Tomorrow, we are going to hold a workshop for a group of Girl Scouts involved in the Destinations program (: Did I mention that tomorrow is also July 24th, the “Life in a Day” day on Youtube…who knows maybe we’ll end up on the big screen….

Even though this is the off-season, we’ve been really busy since returning from Atlanta. Aside from patching up the robot and straightening up the lab, we’ve been involved in several important outreach events. We had one very busy weekend of outreach just a couple of weeks ago.

On May 21, several Space Cookies (not including me) spent a sunny Friday at Great America to demonstrate our robot as part of Great America Physics Day. This is a day in which the park is opened to physics, science, and math classes from all over the peninsula whose teachers bring them to experience a real-world physics lesson. Several other FIRST teams were at the park demonstrating their robot as well, and those who went had a blast.

Fixing the robot at Great America (photo by Callie)

The next morning, we headed up to our sponsor Intuitive Surgical’s headquarters for their open house, where we had a chance to test-drive their surgical robot, the da Vinci, and receive a tour of their manufacturing facility. It was a very cool event.

Test-driving the Intuitive Surgical robot (photo by Callie)

Later that day, we drove to San Mateo to participate in the annual Maker Faire, an event dedicated to science, art, engineering, and a do-it-yourself mindset, and a celebration of all the cool creations that can be made with your hands and mind. We talked to visitors and demonstrated our robot at a booth sponsored by WRRF, the Western Regional Robotics Forum. We had a chance to talk to so many cool people, some of whom had heard of FIRST and were excited to see a FIRST booth at the Faire, and others who had never heard of this organization and were amazed by what a group of high-schoolers could accomplish in six weeks! We had a great time showing people the inner workings of our robot, telling them about our team, and spreading the word of FIRST.

Emily

This way to ROBOTS! (photo by Callie)

More photos of Atlanta 2010!  These emphasize more the fun things we do while on a team trip, not just competition.

Silly mentors! Faces are for KIDS.

The Girl Scouts gave us candy LEGOs. What were we supposed to do but build castles and get hyper?

The robot's working! Do a little happy dance!

The prettiest girls ever to grace the halls of Roboprom

Having fun at the rides at the after party.

Rawr means "I love you" in Dinosaur! (Yes that is their actual hair...)

Our awesome friends on GRT paid us a visit after we fixed their programming!

Whadda you looking at, punk?

Between AP Exams, Golden Gate Bridging and getting ready for our Recruitment Event (coming soon!), it’s been a while since we’ve had time to update you with photos and more from our Championships experience.  I was lucky enough to have our team media badge, and so here are some of my favorite photos from the craziest three days of your FIRST life:

The robot gets a field trip!

Drive team cheers during our introduction! We might not have been the loudest team there, but we were definitely the shrillest.

Dory faces off against 166 during a qualification match. A rare shot of us playing midfield

Cara attends the tournament meeting as 7th alliance captain!

That’s all for now!  Check back soon for more photos of activities and fun.

It has been a while since our last post and that was for many reasons. But first I shall get you caught up on our wonderful adventures in Atlanta. It was amazing, everything we had hoped and so much more. Our Robot worked and preformed amazingly well. After 2 days of competion and late nights we ended up in 7th place out of 86 teams! With our group of 14 girls we had an amazing time. When we got back we were a little tierd so we had a small break.

We participated at Golden Gate Bridging, where 5,000 Girl Scouts came to walk the bridge and celebrate!  This year’s theme was Girls Go Tech!   The robot was a hit.  Everyone wanted to drive and kick!

Julia

Having fun with robotics!

Setting up at Crissy Field GGB

Well it’s been a long build season and then we had some awesome competitions! However once we ended SVR in second place and won the Spirit Award I thought it was all over. The thing called nationals in Atlanta Georgia was a far off dream. After being on the waiting list since before build and there being only 1 week until the competition, I thought it was over. An awesome amazing season and I was sad to see it end. You have no idea how wrong I was. Because of this fact. As of 11:24 am on Friday April 2 (so we knew it was no joke ) we, the Space Cookies, cleared the waiting list and are going to Nationals. I’m sorry are you shocked? I can say it again. THE SPACE COOKIES ARE GOING TO NATIONALS!!!!!!!!!!! . WOW WOW WOW. It’s amazing and totally surreal at the same time I could not be more excited in my LIFE!!! So only after calming down did we have the chance to realize that there is only one week till nationals!  During our last competition some flaws were found which none of us have even tried to fix. ( we really did not expect to need to fix the robot soon). All of our adrenaline is running high and we will be using lots of sugar as fuel. Hopefully Atlanta will be just as much fun as all the other competitions! GO SPACE COOKIES!

Julia

Hey!

Just a quick update-with a working kicker, new rollers and new plates, we were ranked 4th out of 49 teams at SVR!  With the first team picking the second for an alliance, we were third alliance team captains!  We got to pick two of our favorite teams, 100 and 675, and went on to make finals at one of the most competitive regionals in the world!

Unfortunately, we were unable to shift out of low gear in the final matches, and therefore had a lot of trouble maneuvering around our defender.  But, it was a close match, and we give a shout out to our lab-mates, 254, who won yet another regional!  We love you guys!

And, hey, all the pompoms and facepaint paid off- SPIRIT AWARD!!!!!

On top of all of THAT, two of our team members from last year started their own team.  They did a great job at SVR, and won Rookie Inspiration!  Solista we love you!  Check them out- Fremont Christian High School, team 3156.

All in all, a great regional event!  Photos and more coming soon!

We’re winding things up in the lab tonight as we make our final preparations for the Silicon Valley Regional, which begins tomorrow in San Jose.  We’ve made lots of progress since returning from San Diego–we have a kicker (yay!),  working rollers,  and an autonomous mode in progress.  We have been in the lab every night working to prepare and upgrade the robot for SVR. Even an incident yesterday involving a shorted PWM cable and a cloud of magic smoke could not stop us.

This is what burnt insulation looks like. Don't let it happen to you!

Some things remain to be tested. We’ll spend tomorrow’s practice matches working out the kinks in the rollers and kicker and fine-tuning the autonomous mode program. But for now, the crates are being packed, the polycarb  siding is being cut, and new tread is being applied to the wheels, fresh for competition tomorrow. We’re confident that our experience in San Diego along with the improvements we’ve made to our robot will bring us a successful competition at SVR.

Emily

Helloooo Cookie Followers! Those of you who have read past posts will know about our awesome time in San Diego (and the crowd goes wild!) but we have had some minor modifications to be made before the Silicon Valley Regional this Thursday. Ladies and gentlemen, we have been in the lab every night, and we’re doing really well! The kicker is completely wired up and running, and our rollers are fully functional. We’re really psyched for San Jose, and looking forward to not getting up before 5 on Thursday morning for our flight! The wonders of competing close to home. Well, best get back to work – We’ll re-blog later!

Our drive team did a fantastic job today!  They scored more goals than most of the other teams.  This put us into 9th place (out of 49 robots) in the qualification matches. We have 3 more qualification matches on Saturday.  Wish us luck!

Ball captured…

and scored!