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Princesses with Power Tools (PWPT) is an event held by Pearadox that encourages young girls to pursue STEM as a hobby or future career. On November 10, 2023, Pearadox held their 3rd Annual PWPT event with 23 girls in attendance, ranging from ages 8-10. A group of Pearadox members who are dedicated to erasing the stigma that discourages women from pursuing STEM careers were the ones who planned and held the event. In addition, we had 6 professional female engineers volunteering at the event. One of these volunteers is an alumni who now works at NASA as an engineer, plus she was the inspiration for the first event! The girls were shown how to use drills and other power tools, even though the girls were intimidated by the responsibility that came with using large power tools, they all upheld the safety requirements and enjoyed being able to learn about these daunting tools. "I always thought that princesses couldn't do anything cool, so I didn't like them, but these girls are dressed like princess and they're awesome!" said one of the attendants after the event was over. Overall, the event ended up being a huge success with many girls leaving the event with a new mindset when it comes to women in STEM. Written by: Sofia V
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Happy Halloween! Pearadox was at Independence Day park, at the annual community Trick-Or-Treat Trail event. We set up our booth, handed out candy, did small demonstrations of our 2023 season robot, took photos of “Pitch” (Pearadox stitch) with kids and brought more attention to Pearadox. We had great community turnout despite the chilly weather, with almost 8000 trick-or-treaters attending. A Special thanks to the employees and organizers of the events, Pearadox volunteers, mentors, teachers and everyone who participated! Credits: Writer(s):Zayan Q, Misha G Editor(s): Andy N FTC teams from Pearland ISD junior highs (West, South, Miller, East) recently came together for an exciting and productive FTC Kickoff Meeting. The primary focus of the meeting was to dive into the intricacies of the new game and to strategize how to conquer it successfully. To get a hands-on understanding of the game, the teams worked collaboratively to build an FTC demo bot using robotics technology. One key takeaway from the meeting was the emphasis on strategy. The students delved deep into planning their approach, and while they managed to build a drive-train, the limited time posed some constraints. Nonetheless, the students enjoyed the brainstorming sessions about the robot's functions, and they found it to be a valuable learning experience, drawing parallels to what they do in the First Robotics Competition (FRC). Time limitations were a recurring challenge, but it's heartening to see that the meeting offered an opportunity to introduce the young minds to the more advanced aspects of FRC and the engineering portfolio. As the meeting concluded, the general sentiment was positive, with a strong suggestion for more time to be allocated in the future, especially for refining the drive train. For future Pearadox members and others who might be reading this blog, the key takeaway is to explore every aspect of robotics, embrace the opportunity to learn, and don't hesitate to engage in discussions with experienced teams. These meetings are a stepping stone towards building the next generation of passionate robotics enthusiasts. At our weekly meeting on the 4th of October, we started our newest expansion to our FTC and FLL programs; we obtained a new room from the former Choir and EMT program. So far we’ve begun to disassemble old equipment, move some of our stuff in, and plan out what to do with it. We hope that it will provide more opportunities and times for us to mentor our FTC and FLL teams. We will continue posting updates as we further work on the room.
A special thanks to Pearland ISD for the room, and to all the people who helped organise the room. Credits: Writer(s):Zayan Q, Misha G. Photographer: Misha G Editor(s): Andy N  On September 16th, we hosted the annual Round Robin training for rookie members. The Round Robin training is an annual training for new members where they participate in and learn from engaging activities and presentations at multiple stations that can change year to year. This year's stations were:
This year’s rookies got the opportunity to get some hands-on work as they made recreational prototypes from old game pieces and snipped wires at the electrical station. We also talked about our team's outreach and inclusivity initiatives we’ve implemented, such as Brilliant Black Builders, Gearbox Girls, and Safe Spaces in STEM. Veterans were treated to an advanced workshop led by Spectrum FRC 3847 Head Mentor, Allen Gregory. To recap, this year’s round robin ended pretty well helping our new members get adjusted to Pearadox and helping them prepare for our competitions. In fact, one of our first competitions this Fall was Remix, which we competed in last weekend! Special Thanks to Veterans who did Round Robin presentations for the new members. Credits: Zayan Q, Andy N, Sofia V.
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We may have gotten more than just a little behind this. That's ok!
First off - welcome back to this page! We've had a great season this year (so great we forgot to share about it), so 3 claps to that! We made history once again this season, placing 10th in the Curie subdivision with a win-loss-tie record of 10-4-0. So ... this makes us 4 time finalists. Wild. We also held multiple Girls Get Together (GGT) and Brilliant Black Builders (BBB) meetings during competition, as usual, but we also started a new initiative this year: Safe Spaces in STEM (SSS). SSS was formed to be an inclusive space towards robotics members of the LGBTQ+ community, much like GGT and BBB. We are all so incredibly proud of all of our achievements and the impact we have made in our community. That's about it for now. I solemnly swear I am up to n- I mean, to make more posts. Cheers from your favorite Pears! Click count: 0
We got a little behind in posting updates, but some students went through our meeting recaps channel in slack to create some blurbs for our meetings since our last blog!
First things first though - we want to welcome and thank our new sponsors, Little STEM Academy! We did a demo with them a few weeks ago and had a blast showing off our robot to their kids 
Jan 29th On the meeting of January 29th, Pearadox had a productive day. The ball transport subsystem successfully got their side panels CNCed and decided to gather more materials to use for the future. Both the freshmen and sophomore Every Bot groups added hooks to their respective bots so they can climb. Intake subsystem used and tested different ways to mount the intake on a robot. Programming started to work with a new coding system, and chairman has also started to work on the Woodie flower essay. Afterward, the Brilliant Black Builders meeting was held for 15 minutes. Feb 1st A shorter meeting, but we still got a lot done. At the beginning of the meeting, all the subsystems went over their design reviews one by one, and Electrical spent some time assisting the rookies on both Every Bot teams. Feb 2nd Wednesday, February 2nd, was another productivity-filled meeting, as we moved some stuff around for better and easier access to tools, and repaired some of the climber holes. Feb 4th Friday, February 4th, was off on a rocky start, but was an innovative meeting. We weren’t entirely sure that we’d have a meeting due to the weather and the wet roads. Fortunately, we did get to have a meeting! The subsystems made sure that their COTS parts were up to date. We also had a Gearbox Girls meeting after the initial meeting. Feb 5th Saturday, February 5th, was an eventful day. Chairman connected over a call with iron plaid and reviewed the chairman’s essay after lunch. The entire cooperated and answered some Q and A questions. A Brilliant Black Builders meet was held after the meeting Feb 8th Tuesday, February 8th, was a progressive meeting. The subsystems went over their design reviews towards the beginning of the meeting. Chairman reviewed the Woodie Flower essay one last time before submitting it. The subsystems worked hard and made some progress towards the robot. Feb 9th Wednesday, February 9th, was another progressive meeting. The base was sent to a welder early this week, and Chairman’s team worked on some video editor stuff and the end- design. Feb 11th Friday, February 11th was an eventful afternoon. The base got their drive train back, fully welded. Marketing started to paint their wonderful pit designs. Both Every Bot teams (freshmen and sophomore) tested out their robot functions. Feb 15th Tuesday, February 15th the team did a daily design review so that we can make sure that every component of the robot is adding up. Every subsystem hit the ground running because our goal was to have a functional robot. Ball transport subsystem got most of their pieces CNCed over the weekend and so they are ready to begin assembling. Ball transport referred to this meeting as being one of their most productive of the build season yet. Wednesday- February 16th Chairman’s worked on cutting characters and making sure everything in their essay made a good amount of sense before submitting it. Once all this was done, all the hard work that was put in by the chairman’s team finally submitted it one day before it was due!! The climber was able to get the rest of their parts machined and one of their stationary hooks for the practice bot, not “Bruno” is complete. Sophomore everybot worked on autonomous mode which can score and drive out the initial line. Both climber hooks broke but they are getting replaced. Ball tower a lot more parts were machined for practice robots and they started putting together the parts they already had. Feb 18th The climber is in the progress of building the main (moving) part of the climber. As for the stationary hooks. Intake got side plates and pneumatic mount plates cut on CNC. I also milled the side 2X1sAll that's left is the 1/4 aluminum gussets and PC arms. Should be done beginning of Saturday’s meeting. Should be able to assemble it tomorrow hopefully get it mounted soon but that requires nothing to go wrong. 000. Sophomore every bot fixed the stuff we broke earlier, and broke stuff to be fixed later. Shooter finished post-processing side plates which are now ready to be assembled. At the conclusion of the meeting, there was a gearbox girl meeting. Upcoming events We have several things coming up! We hope to see you at one of them. Mattress sale fundraiser - Sat Feb 26th from 10 AM - 5 PM To raise some funds, we're tacking on to the dawson band mattress sale fundraiser. If you're in the market for a new mattress (or pillow, adjustable bases, massage chairs, convertible bean bag chairs apparently, or sheets or whatever) - mark your calendars for Feb 26th from 10 am - 5 pm. One day only! Just let them know that Pearadox Robotics referred you. It's been an expensive year and we hope to make some money from it https://facebook.com/events/s/annual-dawson-hs-band-mattress/442756743961987/ Open house / Inspection PEARfection - Feb 27th from 11 AM to 5 PM - come see our robot(s) and meet the team! - local FRC teams are invited to our facility for mock inspections and practice on the field! We have a upper and lower hub, hangar, terminal, and a full field perimeter. Get some drive practice in! Channelview Competition - March 12th and 13th Come see us compete at Channelview High School. Matches are from 11-730 on Saturday March 12th and continue March 13th from 930-12. Playoffs and awards start at 1 PM. Watch our social media for our specific match times and details! Pasadena Competition - March 25th and 26th You can also watch us compete at San Jacinto College: Central Campus on Sat March 25th and Sun March 26th. Schedule will be the similar to the channelview competition.
Jan 19-21st
We've been busy since our last blog. This year, we decided we needed to build a base quickly, knowing it may not be the final dimensions of our “real robot”. This robot would be a good base that we could mount other prototypes and systems to while we develop our real robot. Because at some point, we won’t want to talk about this anymore, we’ve decided to call this “Bruno bot” (we don’t talk about Bru-no-no-no). At the beginning of this meeting subsystem leads would go up to the TV and present their design review to the team. The goal for the design review is to make sure everyone has a good idea of what other subsystems within the team have been doing. The design review is a good way of making sure that our team is making progress and time stamping future plans. On Friday the 21st we were able to mount the intake to the “Bruno bot”. One of our team's sponsors, Kettering, joined us to talk to the team about future opportunities, encouraging Pearadox students to consider applying and attending Kettering, and they generously donated pizza to the team for dinner. It was really cool learning about Kettering's Co-op program because they have much to offer for young adults that want to pursue engineering in the near future. After dinner was over a couple of our team members gave the two representatives from Kettering a tour of our room. At the conclusion of the meeting, we had our 15-minute gearbox girls meeting that is open for anyone on the team to attend to. The initiative for this meeting is to create a close bond between each other from past experiences and to be able to get to know each other better. In this meeting in particular we talked about the important of “rejection quotas” (for example, keep applying to colleges until you get rejected to at least 3 of them) and a couple people shared some rejection stories from past experiences and how rejection was initially scary, but it ended up being a positive experience.
Sat Jan 21 - Weds Jan 26
Coming into Saturdays meeting the technical side of the team building “Bruno” had a good understanding of what they wanted to have accomplished. As it seems everyone was very prepared to get their goals done with the amount of time, we spend on Saturday. Unfortunately, we realized due to some COVID cases that we would need to end up canceling our Saturday meeting and go virtual only for Tues and Weds. However, before leaving, we did get to see Bruno bot driving around and intaking game pieces
Tuesday we held our design review virtually, and Tuesday and Wednesday we took the opportunity to do some CAD work and teach our Everybot crews how to program. One big decision was we decided that the frame dimensions for Bruno bot were going to be too small for our real robot, so we opted to grow our design by 2 inches and are now about 25" wide by 28" long. Fri Jan 28 and Sat Jan 29
On Friday we began meeting in person again. As we were happy with the speeds and driving we saw from Bruno base, we began constructing parts for our real frame (that's going to be 2 inches longer). Our chairman's group finished a first draft of their chairmans essay, and we got together a lot of parts to test an entire ball path (from intake to scoring) this weekend. The goal is to get this assembled and mounted onto Bruno bot in the coming days so that we have a robot that we can do some kind of practice and learn while we do a lot of manufacturing and assembly of our real practice bot. Bruno bot won't meet competition standards (it will have things like a permanently deployed intake), but it'll give our programmers and drive team something to work with. It was a good productive weekend, and our CAD is starting to look like a real robot!
Also, our freshman and sophomores are building Everybots! If you're looking for a set of climber hooks, please reach out to us and we will happily cut and get them to you!
Meeting 1 - understanding the game
On January 8th, Pearadox had it's first day back after an offseason of rookie training and outreach events. Kickoff is the day where FRC teams all over the world watch the game animation for this years' challenge.
After the game animation ends, our team broke up into groups to go through the rules, discuss different strategies, all the things we think a robot can do, and start figuring out what we want our robot to accomplish in a match. There's a lot of interest and intrigue in a very challenging climbing aspect of the new game, where there are 2 rungs that are higher than you can reach from the ground. The best way for us to try to rank high at a competition and win it is by winning matches (of course) but also earning other "Ranking Points" by scoring 20 game pieces or by having our alliance of 3 robots earn 16 hanging points. If we can get to the high or traversal rung, then we only need to rely on 1 other robot on our alliance to climb. At the end of the day Saturday, we determined that we need to do some prototyping and absorb the game some more before we make any commitments to what our robot should do. We're also fortunate to have had several alumni come back for kickoff. They share a little bit about their experience on the team, what they're doing now, and then help with building the new field with some parent volunteers so our current team members can focus on the robot.
Meeting 2 - prototyping begins
Students began sketching out and prototyping ideas they have. We quickly realized that if we want to be able to complete the Cargo Bonus by ourselves, we not only need a good way to score the cargo balls, but collect them as well.
We also started making some progress on building field elements.
meeting 3 - Design review
On Tuesdays, we do a design review to keep all the students on our large team updated as to the other things going on on the team. As this was only our 3rd meeting of the season, it was more focused on setting what the requirements are for subsystems and priorities for the team. We determined our priority order should be:
Meetings 4-6
We continued prototyping and got to a good stopping point on our field build. We have team members busy on numerous things - from prototypes of subsystems, to preparing awards submissions, and teaching new team members how to build a robot while keeping our parts and tools organized. On Monday we had a meeting to discuss how we might fit our subsystems together. By the end of the day Monday, we had accomplished the following:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Pearland, TX (December 3, 2019) – Preparations for the Pearland Annual Christmas Parade One of our team’s major December projects is the Pearland Annual Christmas parade. We’ve participated in this same parade for 2 years already, and we are excited to kick off our third with the “Toyland” theme! Our students love the process of making the float because it is one of the rare times when students from any subsystem or specialty can work together on the same project. An example of that would be our small but mighty programming team, who helped in creating a program for both our 2018 and 2019 robot to run a loop where the arms could go up and down repeatedly. It added a fun and creative touch to our float that really made us stand out as a robotics team! Our 2018 robot, Scorpearion, we had holding an old game piece made to look like a present. Our 2019 robot, Waste Management, holds another old game piece which resembles a giant ornament, putting it onto our Christmas tree adorned with Pearadox decorations. Aside from the robots, our floats featured huge figures of both a nutcracker and a wind-up pear, the former to fit both the holiday and toy theme, and the latter to provide a cameo of our team mascot, Peary. On top of utilizing every Monday and Saturday meeting leading up to the parade for preparations, we met at the house of one of our Pearadox alumni, Jared, to add all the components onto the float. It was a great team building experience, and 2 very productive nights! Finishing up all the preparations of our float during daylight on Saturday December 7, the day of the parade, we had finished with an amazing product that featured contributions from everyone on our team. A small team of Pearadox students get together at an alumni’s house for float decorating!  Pearadox Robotics Team 5414 is a robotics team that competes annually in FRC competitions. Besides competing in robotics, our student members also mentor junior robotics clubs and teams, earn internships and scholarships, and host government representatives and business organizations that tour our facilities. We partner with Pearland Independent School District.
Pearland, Texas | www.pearadox5414.weebly.com |
