Girls in Robotics with Code/Art

By Tanvi, Georgia, Anuhya, and Ren

On Thursday, June 13, our robotics team presented a Girls in Robotics presentation to Code/Art. Code/Art is a non-profit organization that introduces young women from underrepresented backgrounds to STEM. They specialize in teaching programming using art, such as Processing. We started the meeting by discussing robotics as a whole, along with our roles on our team. We emphasized the skills we have gained, such as programming, engineering, documentation, marketing, outreach, and design. Going into depth on each skill, we explained how to start coding with block coding, the FTC game format(autonomous, driver-controlled, and end game), how to ideate designs, how to start with tinkerCAD, and the importance of documentation.

Since many of the students were new to robotics, we explained these skills in the context of FIRST Robotics. We showed the students our robot and explained last year’s challenge. We also discussed the importance of marketing and outreach in FIRST as it allows us to get funding, sponsorships, and meet professionals. Furthermore, we explained how meeting with professionals in the industry allows us to expand our knowledge and receive feedback on our robots.

Overall, we discussed the comprehensive engineering process, including ideation, problem solving, development and much more. The students had lots of questions which we answered and were very interested in FIRST robotics.

We will be hosting more meetings in the future to increase awareness of FIRST Robotics!