From Apr. 28 to May 3, the Space Cookies First Robotics Competition Team 1868 took on the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology Championship in Austin, Texas, placing 23rd in the Andromeda Division overall. The team, formed in 2006 as a partnership between NASA and Girl Scouts, is comprised of around 50 high school girls in the Bay Area interested in STEM. To be eligible for Champs, Space Cookies participated in three state-level qualifying competitions. According to project manager sophomore Kavya Mathan, there are four main divisions that each member falls under during competitions: mechanical, electrical, programming and operations.
“You don’t need to have any sort of mechanism to participate. Even if your robot just drives, there’s still something you can do to help out,” she said. “I think our team isn’t just good at one (division and) that’s why we did pretty well.”
Space Cookies spent the eight weeks before Champs, the “build season,” designing, building and prepping their robot. The team’s lab is located at NASA’s Ames Research Center, where several staff mentors provide insight to ensure the robot is as successful as possible. Space Cookies’ robot, dubbed “Supernova,” was built with a fixed double shooter designed to propel balls into baskets as quickly as possible. The shooter features two synchronized, stationary launching mechanisms. Sophomore programmer Anika Datta says that Space Cookies’ success can be attributed to this powerful instrument.
“I’m really happy with our performance this year,” Datta said. “Especially if you look at our robot, our design is really unique…Originally, with our strategy, there was a lot of variation, and then everybody converged onto one main strategy that worked really well.”
Beyond building robots for competitions, Space Cookies also gives back to the community through outreach events. They have won the Regional Impact Award several years in a row, which recognizes robotics teams that are exemplary in community service. Programming director junior Caitlin Cai appreciates the importance of incorporating Girl Scout values such as civic engagement and cultivating inclusion into Space Cookies’ activities. As part of this mission, they help elementary and middle-school-aged Girl Scout troops participate in hands-on science and engineering projects through workshops and badge-earning opportunities.
“(These community events help) harness our leadership skills and our teamwork and encourage (young girls) to go into STEM,” Cai said. “I think that women tend to be a very marginalized community within STEM, (but Space Cookies) has given me a way to exercise my experience and skills.”
During Champs, the team participated in several other activities besides robotics, including Robo Prom, a stand-in prom for students who had to miss their high school prom to compete, as well as team dress-ups. Drive Team member freshman Ellie Hu’s favorite parts about the competition are how Space Cookies gets spirited by dressing up in light blue, their team color, and bonding with other teams through dinners.
“Especially when you go to competitions of larger scale … you get to meet a lot of new people on different teams,” she said. “It’s really cool to get to socialize (because) you see teams from (all over). Apart from having a competitive robot, we’re also competitive in the sense that we make a really strong impact on the FIRST community.”
