Engineering a Safe Space to Learn

Since joining my current FTC team in 6th grade as a member in training, and now as a junior in high school, I have learned how to do CAD, build a variety of different mechanisms, and organize groups of people. 

The fact that my team is an all-girls team helps to develop a culture in which everyone's ideas are heard and people are encouraged to take risks. This gave me a space to learn, experiment, and grow in my engineering and design skills. 

During the pandemic, our mentors provided us with resources to help us learn OnShape, an online CAD software, allowing us to collaborate virtually to design our robot. This skill has been immensely helpful to me on my team, in engineering classes, and in internships. Even when I make mistakes in designs, like forgetting to account for tolerances or making a virtual 4 bar arm that is unnecessarily free spinning, my team members and mentors have always been supportive, providing suggestions for design improvement and alternative ways to accomplish the same task. This environment has helped me feel comfortable with failure, or with designs that don’t quite work out. Without acceptance of the possibility of failure, and the capacity to learn from one’s mistakes, building a robot isn’t possible. 

Being on an all-girls FTC team also gave me many opportunities to gain hands-on experience with motors, servos, linear slides, mecanum wheels, and a wide variety of mechanisms. By being able to actually use parts myself, experiment with designs, and assemble CAD models I had made, I was able to develop a much better understanding of how parts work together. It has been immensely rewarding to be able to see ideas that my team brainstorms at the beginning of the season come to life in CAD models, and eventually the final robot.

The environment created on the team has challenged me to try new things, while providing helpful feedback and suggestions when things don’t work out. I am incredibly grateful for the technical knowledge I have gained and the amazing members and mentors I have met on my FTC team. 

FTC Team SpiderBits 17219