When joining a FIRST team, in addition to feeling excited to get involved, it’s pretty natural to feel overwhelmed by everything going on and all the information being blasted in your face, maybe intimidated because most people seem to know what they’re doing so much more than you do, and slightly confused by all the FIRST-related or technical jargon casually thrown around on a daily basis. Including the first build season and getting used to working in close quarters with your teammates, the sheer volume (both number and sound) of people also comes as a shock.
GirlsGoFIRST – Killer Bee Girls Blog
Lather, Rinse, Repeat
So here’s the deal: I absolutely LOVE building robots. Build season is a little slice of heaven for me. Thankfully, the Killer Bees provide a great routine for the robot-loving chick in me. On a typical day, I…
Not Everyone’s an Engineer
What’s special about Team 33 is how diverse we are. We not only have future engineers in our hive, but we also have kids, like me, who contribute to the team in different ways.
Almost all of the people who join robotics do it to learn about how the STEM industry works. They have brains that work like two gears, turning around and around, constantly in motion, coming up with new ideas on how to build and create things to change the world. My brain, however, is the exact opposite. The right side of my brain is more dominant than the left side. If someone were to walk inside my mind, they would find ideas for stories, daydreams, and adjectives waiting to describe things. I don’t think scientifically; I think more creatively. My thoughts are scattered, full of random ideas floating in the air, waiting to come together and land, like an airplane.
Story and Scholarships
Hey FIRST girls! Story time. So, I was with my dentist the other day for some cavities and I started talking to him when he was setting up my mouth. He asked if I drank a lot of pop or ate a lot of bread items. I, by reflex, made a robotics joke (because face it, long nights of pasta and Mountain Dew isn’t great for teeth). This led us into a great conversation about FIRST and STEM. I explained the concept, game, and shared a few stories. He seemed fascinated with the idea of a bunch of high schoolers building a working robot. He started telling me about all of the great opportunities for women engineers. Our team has often discussed these since our large influx of girls in the last few years. This got me thinking about all the girls on our team and the huge amounts of scholarships available exclusively for women in STEM.
Freshman Blog Post #1
Being on the Killer Bees Robotics team has taught me so much. I’m sure most freshmen feel quite ignorant when they first start and I was no exception. It also didn’t help that I started about four weeks later due to other obligations at the time. My first day I felt like I was far behind compared to most of the other members, but that soon changed.
Happy New Year From the Girls of the Killer Bees
Hey FIRST girls! Happy New Year! The 2013 build season has started with a bang and this year’s game, Ultimate Ascent.