December 1st, 2012
On October 12th through 13th, Space Cookies competed in Cal Games, which was held this year in Woodside High School, home of the Wildcats, team 100. We used this competition as an opportunity to let rookies have a turn in the pit, and showed them how to scout. We had a lot of fun and the Spirit team bounced around wearing the cookie costume. Space Cookies did pretty well, and we placed 7th out of 36. We also won the Judges Award, an award given to a team that the judges want to recognize but do not feel fits in any of the existing categories. This was good practice for incoming cookies like me (Portia) and gave older cookies the chance to take the reins and practice leadership skills.
Our VEX team has competed in two tournaments so far. We built several different iterations of our robot, improving our ability to pick up the sacks that are the objective of the game. Our first robot was very reliable, but needed to be able to turn more easily to be competitive. Several other teams complimented us on being very good for a rookie team and very cheerful at our first competition. After that, we improved on our design, basically rebuilding our robot. We made a bigger drive base, making us more stable and allowing us to be heavier. We made an arm that both raised and tilted, allowing us to reach the highest and most valuable goal. On the arm, we put a better intake and let our holding box hinge open to intake sacks. Using this robot, we competed in our second tournament, moving higher in the ranks proportionally. We had quite a bit of bad luck, but dealt with it as soon as we could and did not lose our cheerfulness. We rotated in different drivers in most of our matches, giving everyone who wanted a turn driving, operating or coaching. We have als0 decided our team food will be jelly beans, given how many of them we ate during our meetings and the competition.
The end of the semester, and finals, are fast approaching, meaning that build season is also coming near. There will be a build season kickoff in the lab on January 5th, where we will watch the video issued by FRC and learn about the new game. After build, we will attend two competitions, one in Sacramento, at UC Davis, and the other at San Jose State. The VEX team also has two upcoming tournaments in February and March. They plan on building a second robot to compete as 1868X in said upcoming competitions.
Happy Holidays,
Elizabeth C.D. and Portia B.
Posted in Competition Updates | Comments Off
September 14th, 2012
Space Cookies is just getting started and back into the swing of things with driver practices, chain making and breaking activities, VEX meetings, and planning team finances. This is the first year Space Cookies has done VEX, and the girls on the VEX team seem very excited and eager. They are already building their robot for the competitions in November, and are all geared up for the season with their own mascot, Chip! He’s a blue larvae robot that can move on his own using visual sensors to detect and steer around objects.
This year there are 19 new Space Cookies, us being two of them. We are all ready to contribute and learn about robotics with our 25 older members and our mentors. To get us integrated into the team, senior Space Cookies are holding workshops, such as how to make chains, and shorten them, which is an essential part of building the robot. A scouting workshop tomorrow will teach us how to evaluate the other times. This will help us choose the most beneficial alliance during competitions. We are also getting paired with older members, who will help each individual girl improve in different skill areas, as well as help us transition to Space Cookie life.
The business group is working diligently to find sponsors for our team this year. If you know of any companies willing to sponsor a robotics team, please let us know! The finance team leaders have planned out our current and future budget, and are beginning to talk to our current sponsors about donations. Because everyone loves Space Cookies SO MUCH, we are now re-ordering buttons to replenish our depleted supply from last year, as well as re-designing and printing business cards.
We hope that you continue showing interest & support in our team by reading our blog posts.
~Rookie members Katie and Rachel G.
Posted in General | No Comments »
April 16th, 2012
Only a week and a half left before the INTERNATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS in St. Louis!
In the next week and a half we will:
- Finalize our design for the new conveyor extension/ramp arm (more details to be released later!)
- Find out what division we are in for Champs and which of our friends will be joining us
- Pack up our tools
- TRAVEL TO ST. LOUIS
As soon as we have more information about our Division, we will let you know. In the meantime GET EXCITED! It doesn’t get better than this!
Posted in Events, Rebound Rumble 2012 | No Comments »
March 31st, 2012
We ended up as the #2 seed and went on to pick 3256, the WarriorBorgs from Valley Christian, and 751, from Woodside Priory.
After long and grueling matches we went 14-2 overall and undefeated until Finals!
Posted in Competition Updates | 1 Comment »
March 31st, 2012
The CEO of Girl Scouts USA, Marina Park, visited SVR this weekend and we go to show her around. She was really excited to be there and to meet us, we look forward to working with her more in the future.
See what she thought about meeting us!
http://blog.sfgate.com/mpark/2012/03/30/space-cookies-all-girls-robotics-team-off-to-another-strong-season/
Posted in Competition Updates | 1 Comment »
March 28th, 2012
This weekend the Space Cookies are at SVR! Come see us if you can, we’re at the San Jose Event center Thursday through Saturday.
Go to watchfirstnow.com to follow rankings, qual schedules, elim schedules, awards, and more!
We’re going to be updating our Facebook page throughout the weekend, so check back often for updates!
https://www.facebook.com/spacecookies1868
Posted in Competition Updates | No Comments »
March 19th, 2012
After a tough weekend of highs and lows, we made elimination rounds. Unfortunately, we did not progress past the quarters.
Our robot spent Friday malfunctioning in ways we could not have anticipated, but diligently fixed. Our robot worked well on Saturday and our ranking rose to #33.
Finally, on Saturday afternoon, our hard work paid off with the Chairman’s Award! The Chairman’s Award celebrates the team that best embodies the FIRST ideal. The award is the most prestigious in the FIRST program and guarantees us a berth at the International Championships in St. Louis in late April. The Space Cookies would like to thank our parents, our mentors, our sponsors, and of course our alumni. We stood on the shoulders of giants! Congratulations to all.
Our very own Emily Kellinson-Linn also won the FIRST Dean’s List Award, which celebrates a student who hast contributed to his/her team and the FIRST program. Congratulations to Emily, we are so proud of all your hard work!
We’re gearing up for SVR on March 29-31. We will make several modifications to our robot: Including improving our conveyor and scouting systems. We hope to see you there!
Posted in Competition Updates | No Comments »
March 16th, 2012
Hey everybody! Our first regional is about to start and we are all very excited. We hope to repeat our previous year’s accomplishment: winning the regional. We will have competition updates on our Facebook page during the competition and ike our page to get updates throughout the year:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Space-Cookies-Robotics-Team-1868/179538198750744?ref=tn_tnmn
Live stream:
watchfirstnow.com
Good luck to everyone competing today!
Posted in Competition Updates | No Comments »
March 2nd, 2012
This week we worked on finalizing our shooter design and manufacturing it. We practiced for our Chairman’s Presentation. Our practice robot is nearly functional, so we can start testing our code on it.
With two weeks to go until Davis (12 more days!) the Space Cookies are hard at work preparing for our first Regional of Rebound Rumble 2012. For those of you that can make it we’ll be excited to see you there!
Like our Facebook page for updates!
Posted in General | No Comments »