pic: We left the boys at home

[falconmaster]

I am the other sponsor of team 842 Falcon Robotics. I am as competitive as the next guy, but I also know and believe that it really isn't about the robots. Its just the gimmick used to get all of us together to celebrate math, science and technology in a venue that has proven to be a successful model, sports. Of course winning is a goal, but winning is not always about the robot doing the winning. It is striving for that goal that makes us all better. Wining is not really winning if the cost is too high.
As a coach in sports as well as a robot team I know that a team is as strong as its weakest members. This exercise we did, while difficult to win in the short run, will enable us to win in the long run by making our weakest members stronger. It also allowed us to again reach more people that are under represented in engineering and hopefully spark their will to become an engineer by giving them a chance to be an "engineer". Who would have thought that all we had to do was look at our own team to change the culture. Imagine that.
Also as a coach you want your best people out there, but how do you know what you have unless you give all the members a try, in the "heat of battle". In track, you put your four best runners in the relay, no matter who they are.
We were giving the chance to the girls to see what they could do, in a world where they don't get nearly the chances that the guys do.

Some great benefits came out of letting the "rookies" have at the bot. By being novices and practically no driving experience, the girls came with few preconceptions about what was to happen. So when the girls told us that the robot didn't drive straight, we had to find out why and we did! There was a small drive train problem. This prevented us from driving straight in autonomous. Once this was fixed, we drove straight as an arrow! The boys would instinctively make the correction when driving and think nothing of it. Another problem discovered by the girls was that we were not getting full power to the motors when needed. We have our bot using 40% of max speed to give us more accuracy when navigating around the other bots and ringers. there is a trigger the driver needs to pull while using the joysticks that will enable the the motors to receive full power for pushing robots back or out of the way. Some how the guys with their experience did not notice that they could not get 100% of the power, again because their driving skills mask the robots weakness. When the girls pointed out that there was no difference we hooked up the laptop and looked at the readings, and they were right, pulling the trigger made no measurable difference. Once that was corrected in the code, the robot had no problem pushing any other bot out of the way.

One side note to all this, as a mentor I saw how teams and people treated us differently between being co-ed to all girls.....

We presented the boys on the team with the idea and while they were not excited about the idea at first, they agreed that the girls would learn a lot and also learn how to put up with the stress and humbling that would occur at the hands of all the more experienced teams there. They wanted to learn and the guys wanted them to see what it was like, so the team agreed to make the all girls team for one regional. Also knowing they would have another regional and nationals helped. We went to three regionals Az, co-ed San Diego girls, NV co-ed, . The girls also gained an understanding of what a difference driving experience makes. Next year we start playstation time in the fall after school and driving the older bots up and down our hallway with obstacles both going away and toward them. Get the left right and opposite thing going.

Ultimately the goal of FIRST is to inspire and motivate as many people as possible to appreciate and participate in engineering so that we might have a better world in the future,...... and that is what we did.