Welcome to our first blog post! We hope you enjoy all the upcoming blogs on here! Given the current pandemic situation, many organizations have moved to distance learning, including GSNorcal Robotics. All our teams have adjusted to this new way of learning, and have taken up some online vex robotics challenges or other projects. Below are two middle school teams (84 Blobs and Gynoid) on what they have been working on related to VEX in quarantine:
84 Blobs Website Challenge
Team 84 Blobs has been working on creating a website for GSNorcal Robotics. 84 Blobs is a second year middle school team, consisting of 4 girls (Nirvika, Alicia, Sarah, and Shamali). They are participating in the VEX robotics online challenge this season. On this website they have created, they have included everything you need to know about VEX robotics. If you are reading this, that means you are on the website they created! This is the link to their website: https://84blobs.wixsite.com/gsnorcalrobotics. As you can see in the website, GSNorcal Robotics is an all-girl organization that encourages more girls to get interested in STEM. There is a meet the staff section in which you can see the brilliant coordinators of GSNorcal Robotics community. Right now, you are reading our most recent addition to our website: The Blog! 84 Blobs has included information about each season in VEX Robotics and team experiences from current VEX students, so be sure to check those out :) GSNorcal Robotics also holds workshops and events for rookie and alumni teams, which you can check out in the Events and Activities Section. 84 Blobs hopes to interview many other teams as the season goes by!
84 Blobs works on their website (this one!)
Gynoid Silver Award
During our time with VEX, Gynoid has noticed that there's a disproportionate number of boys and girls. With a pandemic at large and all Girl Powered events cancelled, Gynoid decided that as part of their Silver Award, they would ensure that more girls would be joining VEX in the coming years. They plan to get more girls in robotics by hosting Zoom Webinars, creating badge curriculum/workshops, creating a welcome guide for new teams, establishing a mentorship program, creating a documentary with alumni input, making the female chaperone system in lab meetings more efficient, and advertising volunteering at tournaments.
If you would like to contribute to their project, please email them at (gynoid43426c@gmail.com) or send in a request at their site (www.roboticsbeyond.wixsite.com/home)
Their Silver Award plan entails:
Creating a robotics badge curriculum for Daisies all the way up to Ambassadors
Making the female chaperone system in lab meetings more efficient.
Advertising volunteering at tournaments
Establishing a mentorship program between alumni and new teams
Creating a welcome guide with all the technical know how ect. for new teams with alumni input
Filming a documentary in order to spread the word to other girls about the GSNorCal robotics program (with alumni input)
Hosting webinars featuring members from alumni teams so that younger girls can have someone to look up to and ask questions
I hope you enjoyed today’s blog. Looking at two different teams' aspects of this new way of VEX Robotics, we hope you got a feel about what we have been doing as GSNorcal Robotics. Stay tuned for future blogs!