Empowering Girls in STEM: Mechanical Mushrooms Robotics Team

Who is Mechanical Mushrooms?

Hello! We are Mechanical Mushrooms, and we're a rookie team based out of the Triangle Area in North Carolina. All of our members have 1-3 years of FTC experience, but this is our first time running our own team. We will build a new robot every season, reusing the tools that you can help fund. Our coaches and mentors are volunteers with lots of robotics experience. As a community team, we aren’t associated with any school and therefore don’t receive funding from a specific school system. Instead, we will raise money by having fundraisers, sponsors, or outreach opportunities.

Mechanical Mushrooms is unique in that it is an all-girl team, which makes it stand out from the beginning. Our robotics team will inspire other girls to take the lead, especially when they see that an all-girls robotics team is possible. Women are often pushed back in STEM fields, even at a young age. We are creating the next generation of successful, confident women in STEM.

Our team members are Charlotte, Andrea, Maizlyn, Sara, Sophia, and Tara.

What is FIRST Tech Challenge?

It’s way more than building robots. FIRST Tech Challenge teams are challenged to design, build, program, and operate robots to compete in a head-to-head challenge in an alliance format. Guided by adult coaches and mentors, students develop STEM skills and practice engineering principles, while realizing the value of hard work, innovation, and working as a team.

The robot kit is reusable from year to year and can be coded using a variety of levels of Java-based programming. Teams design and build robots, raise funds, design and market their team brand, and do community outreach to earn specific awards. The season ends with championship events and an exciting FIRST Championship. (Language borrowed from FIRST Tech Challenge Website)

Students do all of this while also exhibiting gracious professionalism. Gracious Professionalism is part of the ethos of FIRST. It's a way of doing things that encourages high-quality work, emphasizes the value of others, and respects individuals and the community. Through Gracious Professionalism, fierce competition and mutual gain coexist. Participants compete intensely while treating each other with respect and empathy. There is no trash talking, nor disingenuous platitudes. Knowledge, competition, and empathy are comfortably blended. (Woodie Flowers description)

Learn more about FIRST here: https://www.firstinspires.org/

What will the money be used for?

Our money will be put to use buying necessary materials for our robot, paying for tournament and registration fees, and buying practice items like fields or scoring elements. Here’s a list of specific items we would use the money you donate to buy:

- FTC 2024-2025 Registration Fee ($295)

- Kit of Parts: Control Communication Set ($275)

- REV Robotics Control Hub ($295)

- Kit of Parts: Competition Set ($699)

- Tournament Registration Fee ($100)

- Scoring Elements ($60)

- Extra parts, supplies, tools, anything not included in the above list ($400)

Why support us?

Helping fund our team will help us build our robot and succeed in matches or tournaments. We also get to learn about thing we wouldn’t have had the chance to otherwise, including:

- Building and engineering

- Coding

- Team building skills

- Problem solving skills

- Math concepts

- Other STEM opportunities

- Practice important life skills like public speaking

Starting this team is super important to us. You can make our dream come true by helping fund us!