So here comes the fun part: how the first all-girl team from the lovely state of Alabama came to be.
It all started on a cold, dreary day at the very end of December. It was literally cold and dreary because ice had coated the pavement of every highway and byway in our county, and all of us high school teenagers were stuck at home (a tragedy, really). Talk of an all-girl team had been gracing the ears of Alexis, former team member, Chase Chandler, and myself for about 2 months. Since our most recent tournament at the time, we had become, for a lack of better words, more than fed up with how the boys had been treating us. From not taking our ideas into consideration to just ignoring us, the decision was made to create team 9225C: the very first all-girl team from Alabama, on December 29th, 2015.
Coming back to school after that Christmas break was like a breath of fresh water. And yes, I do mean water. By creating a new team, it meant we would have to start from scratch, from new ideas all the way to the drive train, and our first tournament was at the end of that month. No pressure, right?
Our robot, which we affectionately named Juice Box, took a whole whopping 4 months to perfect, and even then, she could've been better than she was. Basically, we wanted to take a spin on the game last year. Everyone knew how to get extra points, which was to lift your partner off the ground, and yet, no one attempted it in any of the tournaments we had been to. We wanted to change that.
Juice Box was given her name because she was a literal box. She had a linear motion kit attached to the base to move far enough apart so a robot of any width could drive up the part of the Juice Box that extended. She then lifted a robot of any weight above the field barrier, which was considered a high lift. This resulted in team 9225C being the first team to lift another robot from the state of Alabama.
By winning the Design Award at our state competition in March, our little team had paved its way to the VEX Robotics World Competition that April. And boy, were we excited. Preparing for that trip was the most stressed out we'd been all season but probably the most fun we'd had.
At Worlds, we placed 40th out of the 100 teams in the Technology Division. Worlds was, by far, the most interesting experience I have ever encountered. That is our ultimate goal for this season. Us seniors want to end our very last season with a bang.
It all started on a cold, dreary day at the very end of December. It was literally cold and dreary because ice had coated the pavement of every highway and byway in our county, and all of us high school teenagers were stuck at home (a tragedy, really). Talk of an all-girl team had been gracing the ears of Alexis, former team member, Chase Chandler, and myself for about 2 months. Since our most recent tournament at the time, we had become, for a lack of better words, more than fed up with how the boys had been treating us. From not taking our ideas into consideration to just ignoring us, the decision was made to create team 9225C: the very first all-girl team from Alabama, on December 29th, 2015.
Coming back to school after that Christmas break was like a breath of fresh water. And yes, I do mean water. By creating a new team, it meant we would have to start from scratch, from new ideas all the way to the drive train, and our first tournament was at the end of that month. No pressure, right?
Our robot, which we affectionately named Juice Box, took a whole whopping 4 months to perfect, and even then, she could've been better than she was. Basically, we wanted to take a spin on the game last year. Everyone knew how to get extra points, which was to lift your partner off the ground, and yet, no one attempted it in any of the tournaments we had been to. We wanted to change that.
Juice Box was given her name because she was a literal box. She had a linear motion kit attached to the base to move far enough apart so a robot of any width could drive up the part of the Juice Box that extended. She then lifted a robot of any weight above the field barrier, which was considered a high lift. This resulted in team 9225C being the first team to lift another robot from the state of Alabama.
By winning the Design Award at our state competition in March, our little team had paved its way to the VEX Robotics World Competition that April. And boy, were we excited. Preparing for that trip was the most stressed out we'd been all season but probably the most fun we'd had.
At Worlds, we placed 40th out of the 100 teams in the Technology Division. Worlds was, by far, the most interesting experience I have ever encountered. That is our ultimate goal for this season. Us seniors want to end our very last season with a bang.