After the end of last year, the Iron Maidens felt that it was key to the success of the FTC program at our high school to create more teams. (See Sustainability Plan—FTC at AVHS) We spoke to the STEM coordinator at our school, Mr. James Lynch, and he agreed. He helped us in our mission by setting aside school funds in order to buy two basic kits of parts for the new teams. On September 15, 2015, we co-hosted a robotics informational meeting with the FRC team at our school, Knights of the Valley. We told the students at the meeting about our desire to start two new FTC teams and had them put their names and contact information down on a paper if they were interested. A week later, we had an only FTC meeting where we separated the students into two teams so that each had a roughly equal number of members and mentors. Our mentors then talked to the new FTC mentors in the hallway while the Maidens had a Q&A panel about FTC with all of the new members. Afterward, we registered them with FTC and got their team numbers. At the first few meetings for each team, we had people from the Maidens attend and help to guide them through the first couple of stages. Our mentors also worked closely with theirs in order to get the teams on their feet. 

“Revolution Force” at Westview Elementary School: At our previous demonstration at Apple Valley Middle School’s open house, we met a boy named Garrett, who was involved in FIRST LEGO League. He later emailed and asked us to come to one of his meetings. So on March 28, we headed to Westview Elementary School, where we were introduced to Garrett’s team. The meeting started with the FLL team explaining what they do at a normal meeting and how a LEGO League competition works. We were interested because the LEGO League competitions were very different from the FTC ones, mainly because teams don’t compete for head to head, they all go separately and try to see whose robot can complete the challenges the fastest. After that, we demonstrated our robot to them, and both teams drove their robots around together. The meeting ended with a group of photo. 97% Recycled: On October 15, we had a team of FIRST LEGO League students into the fabrication lab at our school (Apple Valley High School). The theme for FIRST this year centers around recycling and reusing. Because of this, the FLL team decided to “recycle” their team shirts from last year. We helped them to make vinyl cuts of their new logo and heat press them onto the shirts, using the equipment in the FAB Lab. We loved helping team FLL team 97% Recycled, as this was yet another fabulous way to reach out into the community and help young students learn more about STEM. FLL Workshop: Saturday, September 19th, 2015, Cori, Atalanta, and Lul helped out at an FLL workshop for young programmers involved in FLL to get help for their code and ask questions. After the kids had made changes to their code, they could bring their robots to the practice FLL mats that were set up in the back. The three Maidens helped answer questions and guide the kids in the right direction for their current code.

We work very closely with the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team at our school called the Knights of the Valley. As the first teams at our school to form in each of our respective divisions of FIRST, we have formed a natural bond as like-minded people in that we all enjoy learning about science and technology. Beyond simply having to share meeting space and being associated together, we have also done many outreach events collectively as Apple Valley Robotics. We have presented with them at the Apple Valley City Council, an FRC Competition at the University of Minnesota, Uponor (twice), the Burnsville Rotary Club, and a Robotics Informational meeting at Apple Valley High. At presentations like Uponor, we relied on each other to get sponsorship and aid our programs at the high school. We have developed such close relations with the Knights, in fact, that we were invited to their celebratory party in May. In the future, we will be continuing this close relation. The FRC team has reached out to us asking about tips with the soft skills FIRST requires, because they have seen our presentations, social media feeds, and monthly newsletters.

We work very closely with the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team at our school called the Knights of the Valley. As the first teams at our school to form in each of our respective divisions of FIRST, we have formed a natural bond as like-minded people in that we all enjoy learning about science and technology. Beyond simply having to share meeting space and being associated together, we have also done many outreach events collectively as Apple Valley Robotics. We have presented with them at the Apple Valley City Council, an FRC Competition at the University of Minnesota, Uponor (twice), the Burnsville Rotary Club, and a Robotics Informational meeting at Apple Valley High. At presentations like Uponor, we relied on each other to get sponsorship and aid our programs at the high school. We have developed such close relations with the Knights, in fact, that we were invited to their celebratory party in May. In the future, we will be continuing this close relation. The FRC team has reached out to us asking about tips with the soft skills FIRST requires, because they have seen our presentations, social media feeds, and monthly newsletters.

On October 3rd, 2015, our team went to an FTC workshop at the University of Minnesota. Three of our team members hosted a session for rookie teams on community outreach. These three loved being able to teach young teams about something the Maidens focus on so heavily. One of the most exciting parts of this event is that other FTC teams including the Lazbotts, Height Differential, and Polar Vortex, also showed up and gave presentations. Most of the new members on our team went around to listen to these presentations and they enjoyed it quite a bit. The workshop was a fun and awesome outreach opportunity that gave us a chance to connect with old and new teams as well as communicate and teach what we know.

At our state competition last season, Dan Johnston (the uncle of one of our team members, Atalanta) watched us compete. After the tournament, he returned home to Duluth and was so inspired by what he saw from us at the competition that he helped form a new FTC team called the Krakens. At our first qualifier this year (North Branch), we ended up having a pit right next to them and were very happy to see this team doing so well. We were very proud during the award ceremony when it was announced that they won the Connect Award. During our second qualifier, which also happened to be theirs, they were in need of a phone since theirs was not working. We were happy to loan them our spare phone, and the Krakens were extremely grateful.

On May 5, FTC team 9132 the Polar Vortex contacted us over direct message on Twitter asking for help with an upcoming outreach event of theirs. They had heard that our team loves to do presentations to large groups of children and does them quite often. Polar Vortex was doing a presentation to a large group of children and looking for some tips on how exactly to do it. We were happy to help out a fellow FTC team with outreach! After this first bit of communication, we partnered with the Polar Vortex for several other outreach events, such as the TXT camp (August 30, 2015) and a presentation to the Epilepsy Foundation (January 16, 2016).

Lakeville team 9617, Loose Screws, had wheels that needed to be 3D printed for their robot. They had an Ekocycle 3D printer but unfortunately, it wasn’t big enough. After talking with team 9132, Polar Vortex, who also from Lakeville and didn’t have the right size printer, they were connected to our team because of our good connections with Polar Vortex. We did have a big enough printer in our school’s Fabrication Lab. Before their first qualifier, we quickly printed the wheels for them with the makerbots. A while afterwards, we received a thank you card from their team which was very thoughtful. We also reprinted one of the wheels for them after it broke. We look forward to seeing the Loose Screws at the Minnesota state competition in February.

After the Rochester Qualifier, the Green Girls contacted our team through direct message on Twitter. They were impressed with our achievements in the Connect Award criteria and outreach. They offered to share information about their Think Award performance in return for information about our Connect Award criteria. We were happy to do this with them and ended up sharing the Team Section of our notebook with them. They, in return, shared with us their Engineering Section (with a general robot idea, use of fabrication, and explanation of what the design process is). We loved being able to work with another all-female robotics team.

After our success at the Minnesota state competition (winning the Think Award), many teams have been contacting us for Engineering Notebook advice. The FTC team 3887 I.C.E. (Intelligent Chicks in Engineering) emailed us a request to meet online to discuss our Notebook. Our Engineering Notebook manager spoke with them over Skype for an hour and a half. She told them about our Notebook’s structure, sections, set-up, Engineering Section, Business Plan, outreach, Sustainability Plan, Strategic Plan, recording format, team involvement, and more. She also talked about community outreach in the STEM community. She told them about how we interact with our sponsors in terms of presentations, communication, sponsorship levels, and design reviews. She also gave them advice on how to do outreach of their own with businesses. Our Engineering Notebook manager was more than happy to help out a fellow FTC team.

On Monday, February 23, 2015 from 6:30 p.m. until 8:30 p.m., the Iron Maidens demonstrated our robot at the Eastview High School STEM Career Fair. We attended with our robot from last season (Madame Steel) and demoed her for the entire night, rotating in shifts so that everyone could look at the career stands set up around us for a while. As women in STEM, we were particularly interested in seeing what careers we may have later in life. For example, Emily, our CAD expert looked at 3D modeling programs that built houses, similar to how CAD is set up. Our medically-enthused robot builder, Barbara, was exceptionally excited about the whole row of medical professions eager to speak with her. Another of our members, this time the math-enthused one, Cori, spent a few minutes speaking math nerd with people whose jobs revolve around math. Then, there was the demonstration itself, of course, which never fails to disappoint. We had a few game pieces and spent the night showing passing students how the robot works. As always seems to happen when robots are present, people were immediately interested.

On Thursday, March 5, 2015 from 6:00 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. the Iron Maidens attended a STEM Fair at Diamond Path Elementary School in Apple Valley. We arrived fifteen minutes beforehand and were assigned a classroom to set up in. We brought four small Zumo Bots (small robots we borrowed from the school that were designed to push each other out of a ring) and Madame Steel (our robot from the 2014-2015 season). On one end of the room, we set up a table with the Zumo-Bots and across the main area of the room we had a large space to drive Madame Steel around. Throughout the night, we had a steady stream of students and their parents flowing through our room. The kids loved playing with the Zumo-Bots while we explained how their sensors work, then moving over to try driving Madame Steel around. We loved seeing the eyes of these kids light up as they played with the robots. The parents, too, showed genuine interest in enrolling their students in STEM-related programs. At the end of the night, one administrator from the school came in to comment about how we had been a great hit and how our room was consistently one of the most packed.

On Wednesday, March 25, 2015 from about 7:00 a.m. until 9:00 a.m. the Iron Maidens went to the Minnesota State Capitol Building to testify for a bill that put three million dollars into STEM courses for our state’s schools. The bill had been proposed by Senator Clausen, who we had done outreach with during our prior season. He had previously asked us whether we would be willing to testify for a bill should said bill make it to a senate hearing. We readily agreed, then got the notice a couple weeks ago that March 25 would be the day. Senator Clausen introduced the bill, telling the room about how it would put three million dollars into STEM courses. He then welcomed the Iron Maidens and Mr. Paul Olson up to testify for the bill. Mr. Olson began, talking about his experiences as a mathematics teacher and therefore a STEM educator. In fact, Mr. Olson had been the eighth grade math team of three of the Iron Maidens. After he had spoken, one of our team members, Cori Roberts, testified about how STEM had positively influenced her as well as the students the team has done community outreach with. Immediately, we could see the room light up. For the bill prior to ours, many of the senators had been disengaged and on electronics. However, when our team’s representative spoke, everyone paid careful attention. Senator Clausen was fairly confident that the bill would pass with the testimony that we gave.

At 6:30 on March 26, 2015, the Iron Maidens went to the Apple Valley City Council meeting at the invitation of our school’s FRC team, the Knights of the Valley. They had partnered with the Eastview High School robotics teams to speak with the mayor of Apple Valley about making April “Robotics Month” in Apple Valley. We were there to show the Council all the different types of robots. Before the City Council meeting, however, we were out in the hallway showing our robots to the people in the building. At one point, the mayor was conversing with one of the Eastview teams and noticed our robot playing with some game elements. She walked over and asked about our team, so we offered to teach her to drive the robot. After silencing her insistence that she would crash the robot, we convinced her to drive with Atalanta (as two controllers were required for the operation of our robot). She was very enthusiastic and animated while driving; when she was done she thanked us for allowing her to drive and also for representing females in STEM everywhere. The City Council meeting was then called, and the mayor adopted April as the official “Robotics Month” in Apple Valley. Four representatives from the FRC teams spoke with her in front of the Council, two from the Knights of the Valley. Later during the meeting, she directed the audience by saying, “Now, I know that the four students up here are all male, I would like to point out one very special all-female team called the Iron Maidens.” She then had us stand and everyone clapped for us. We were very honored to be acknowledged in this very special way by the mayor of our city.

On March 30th, 2015, we sent an email to Representative Loon to support the bill she was trying to get accepted. The bill was to help spread FTC, FLL, and Jr FLL to the northern parts of Minnesota. The team member that wrote the email, Atalanta, had a  personal connection with this bill. Having moved from the intended area the previous year, she still had many personal contacts and resources to utilize. She talked to multiple different people from several different cities and towns and received the same, positive response from all of them. After messaging her uncle, he wrote a short email supporting FIRST, specifically FLL and FTC, to provide further evidence of the impact it had up north. She used all of these while testifying.

The Iron Maidens also made it into two newspapers, one for testifying at the Capitol and another for driving our robot with the mayor.

On April 4, 2015 from 9:30 a.m. until 12:00 a.m., the Iron Maidens were invited to do some outreach with our school’s FRC team, the Knights of the Valley. They were having a competition at the University of Minnesota, and there was some time and space set aside for the teams to do outreach. The Knights of the Valley set up a small table with the lovable Zumo Bots that we had used at Diamond Path Elementary School earlier in our season. Beside the table, the Iron Maidens worked in shifts with the robot. Two of us would drive the robot and greet people, while the rest would go down into the pit area to talk with the FRC teams who were also competing there. Our favorite part was the fact that many young children took a great interest in our robot, Madame Steel. They loved how she could wave her flipping arm and move slowly closer to them. One particular little kid enjoyed taking the balls from our rolling goal and putting them on Madame Steel. By the end of the day, our jackets were covered in stickers, buttons, lanyards, and keychains from the many wonderful FRC teams that we met there. We loved being able to go to this competition in support of the Knights of the Valley and get a better feel for the entire FRC community.

On April 8, 2015, the Iron Maidens had the opportunity to go into the 196 school district to speak with a group of individuals from various schools and companies. We spent about half an hour talking with them about what we do as a team, how our robot works, and our goals as a team. They particularly loved our interest in promoting STEM among young children, most of whom have been from our district. We enjoyed telling them about how we’ve talked with a wide number of students from different schools in our district (Echo Park Elementary, Cedar Park Elementary, Diamond Path Elementary, Valley Middle School, Falcon Ridge Middle School, and more to come). They were especially eager to hear about how much we encouraged girls to join, and erase the “boys-only” stereotype. We really liked the questions they asked, and we also enjoyed watching their amazement as we turned on Madame Steel and showed her off.

Right after we had our meeting with the people at ISD 196, the superintendent heard that we were there and kindly invited us into her office. We took a nice group picture and then discussed our past season with her. She was very proud of our accomplishments and we were happy that she heard about what we had done over the past few months. We loved the chance to be able to talk with such a strong role model for young women everywhere.

From the meeting with the superintendent, the Iron Maidens traveled to the Minnesota State House of Representatives. At the same time that Senator Clausen’s bill (mentioned above under “Senate Heading to Testify”) was introduced, an identical one was introduced in the House of Representatives. The representative who introduced this bill invited us in to testify again as she had heard such positive remarks from Senator Clausen. We were honored to come in again and testify, this time in front of a committee of representatives called the High Education Finance Committee. Cori Roberts spoke again, quite wonderfully, while the rest of the Maidens stood behind her for support. After that, we all sat down, and another testifier answered questions for the Committee.

At 9:00 a.m. on April 11, 2015 we set up our robot and the Zumo Bots. We split the team into two groups of two, that simultaneously switched off jobs from time to time. Barbara and Connie started out demonstrating the Zumo Bots and Atalanta and Emily started by setting up Madame Steel. The Motorbolts had a field and a scoreboard set up for pretend matches. During this time, children would line up and wait for a match to start so they could drive Madame Steel. After the match ended, another child would get a chance to drive the robot. The teams in attendance were The Motorbolts, Height Differential, and several First Lego League teams demonstrating their robots. Meanwhile, Barbara and Connie demonstrated the Zumo bots, a fan favorite among the kids. This time, we let them draw pictures using whiteboard markers on the robot of their choosing, which made the robots easier to identify, as well as more fun for the children. The event ended at 12:00.

April 12, 2015, we went to an event called RoboFest, hosted by FTC robotics team, The Lazybotts, in conjunction with national robotics week. The event was hosted at Eden Prairie Center from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.. While there, we demonstrated our robot and also brought in the Zumo Bots that we had used many times before for other outreach activities. There were tables set up for each team that came and lots of young children came up to our area to check out our robot as well as the Zumo Bots. Our team had an amazing time at Robofest, doing competitions and fun things with the children and the robots. During the time we were there, lots of parents came up to talk with us about how they get get their kids involved and what the FIRST program is all about. We were also very excited to be able to talk with other teams that came to the event as well. Some of the teams that were there included Radioactive Robots, Robot Squad, and Polar Vortex. It was nice to be able to catch up with those teams and a few others. Overall, our team had an especially wonderful experience and are looking forward to next year’s RoboFest.

On April 16, 2015, our team had requested to visit Uponor for a presentation of our robot and they responded to our e-mail and even invited our school’s FRC team, The Knights of the Valley. We went there and talked about first and it’s many programs, and gave a detailed PowerPoint about both our team and the Knights of the Valley. Our robot could not connect to the BlueTooth for the better part of our presentation time, however we eventually figured it out after a phone call with Jason, while Knights of the Valley were presenting their robot. The employees were very understanding of our situation, being engineers themselves.  We spent most of the time describing what our robot did, and talking more in-depth about our team to the employees, as well as answering many questions.

On April 20, 2015, Atalanta and Emily presented to a group of teachers and businesses, and told them about our team in the Apple Valley FAB Lab. They were all very interested, and some said they had heard things about us beforehand. After the presentation, which lasted for a few minutes, Atalanta and Emily went to the back of the FAB Lab, where they drove the robot and demonstrated its functions to groups of people who rotated. Beforehand, with the help of Paul Olson, Atalanta and Emily set up the “Makey Makey” bots. Using these, they were able to play Pac Man using a piece of paper as their control system, and also play several virtual instruments powered by potatoes and bananas. They enjoyed playing with the Makey Makey bots, and Paul Olson was happy to see their enjoyment. Madame Steel made a cameo in the next EaglEye, Apple Valley High School’s bi-weekly news program.

On April 23, 2015, our team visited Apple Valley Middle School’s Stem Inquiry and Showcase, which was also the school’s open house. There, we demonstrated our robot to the passing middle school students, showing them how Madame Steel drove and scored balls. Some of the Maidens, who were alumni of Apple Valley Middle School, took the opportunity to visit their old teachers and share what they learned during the 2014-2015 season. The Maidens also took this chance to scout out potential future robotics students, and found several students who said they would be interested.

On the 25th of April, 2015, one of our teammates, Cori, attended the Burnsville Rotary Event with a few others from the E3 STEM program at our school. It was a first-come-first-serve volunteering opportunity, and unfortunately the rest of our team did not sign up in time. Cori, however, enjoyed representing the Iron Maidens at the event.

On March 1st we visited Echo Park, the elementary school of two of our members, Cori and Emily. The event was a carnival that was put on by the school for the students. The school reached out to us and gave us the opportunity to have a game at there, to which we gladly obliged. We used our school’s Zumo bots to create a game in which the last bot standing in the ring won. For prizes, we handed out chocolate and temporary tattoos, as well as carnival coins that could be redeemed later. The kids loved it a lot, and we were one of the busiest games there. Many of the kids came back repeatedly, and it gave us a chance to talk to their parents about robotics. We answered questions and handed out brochures. A lot of the parents were intrigued.

On May 5, FTC team 9132 the Polar Vortex contacted us over direct message on Twitter asking for help with an upcoming outreach event of theirs. They had heard that our team loves to do presentations to large groups of children and does them quite often. Polar Vortex was doing a presentation to a large group of children and looking for some tips on how exactly to do it. We were happy to help out a fellow FTC team with outreach!

On the 12th of May, two of our members, Atalanta and Emily, went to the Apple Valley High School STEM Advisory Committee. They presented about FIRST in front of people from assorted businesses and schools from across the tri-state area. Immediately after the presentation, they led the group to the manufacturing side of the Fab-Lab and demonstrated our robot. In addition to demonstrating the robot, Atalanta and Emily learned how to use Makey-Makey bots, which harnessed the conductivity of the human body, potatoes, and bananas to complete a circuit. The games you could play using the Makey-Makey bots included Mario and Pac-Man.

At this event, which took place on March 15th, 2015, we spoke in front of members of the Dakota County Workforce Investment Board, who provide guidance for and exercise oversight with respect to the job training programs in Dakota County. We spoke along with two members of the Apple Valley E3 STEM group about the STEM opportunities at our school, us of course talking about robotics. We handed out a few documents to each of the board members, then went ahead and did our long presentation, going more in-depth with our topics. We discussed the creation of our team, gaining sponsors, the engineering notebook, and how our robot worked. We answered some good questions from the committee members, and afterwards, we ate a delicious provided breakfast. This was where we met Mumina for the first time, who later became a member of the team. Here is an email sent by one of the committee members, talking about our presentation. "Way to go Mark, Great choice! The students were all very engaging.

Afterward I spoke with the young lady regarding the medical profession & her new found fascination with knee surgery. She was very excited about being asked to speak to us.*The Iron Maidens were fabulous. Also very engaging & would make a great feature for our video list. Their contact info is on the trifold handout if we want to reach out to them. I truly enjoyed the interactive style of the presentation as well.

Later in the day, on March 15, we were invited to go to the Glacier Hills Elementary Science Night, in which the school got together booths about various fun  activities involving science. We set up our booth in the library, behind the desk. We brought in the Zumo bots for the kids to play with, and we let them draw pictures on the metal plating. The kids naturally loved the Zumo bots, and further down our booth, Atalanta was letting kids drive Madame Steel. Emily and Barbara fixed the Zumo bots that constantly broke. Later they played Uptown Funk, and during the last portion of the demo, they created a dance to go along with it. At the end, the principal of Glacier Hills thanked us for coming, and all of the Maidens helped clean up and marveled at the school library.