Girls on Teams

[Jess1513]

i am the only girl on my team ; i would say that i pretty much get along with all of them . our team is only made up of 7 and about 4 mentors. being a rookie team we are all kinda lost on this. The guys just wanna build and play and have fun they dont like doing any of the hard work. So most of it falls on me , though if i needed one of them to do something they would in a heartbeat

[10reasons]

WBI has 6 girls on the 26 person tech team as well as 5 out of 22 on IT and all three of our PR members. Also 5 of our 18 mentors our female. Most of the girls on our team give everything they've got. The problem on our team is not that the girls are intimidated by the guys but dealing with the comments the guys make about our being female.

[BLAZE]

Personally, I think teams with alot of girls are lucky.... More brains! No offense to all us guys, but you have to admit the girls do tend to think about things before they do them, unlike most of us guys... Our team only has 4, 3 white girls and one crazy PR girl we call "Isha", my conterpart during the competition. (Our team has two mascots, since I can no longer be the Lego Maniac I'm now the King Jester & she claimed the other side of the throne.) Seriously though, the girls on the New England teams seem braver than the guys and I wouldn't be suprised. Girls need to have a voice on a team. It lets you see things from all aspects. :D Well, enough said... does anybody know any of the teams in the Arizona Regional this year? My team's going there this year and it would be nice to meet some new people, not from the east coast. :]

[raining queen]

my team has over 50% girls...of coarse they are smarter and better at everything, except the heavy stuff, dont wanna break a nail u kno, lol... :) we have spirit yes we do, we have the spirit how about you!!! :D as you cant tell im hyper but thats nothing compared to the resident cheer nazis, girls of coarse. :cool:

[vic burg]

Personally, I think teams with alot of girls are lucky.... More brains! No offense to all us guys, but you have to admit the girls do tend to think about things before they do them, unlike most of us guys... Our team only has 4, 3 white girls and one crazy PR girl we call "Isha", my conterpart during the competition. (Our team has two mascots, since I can no longer be the Lego Maniac I'm now the King Jester & she claimed the other side of the throne.) Seriously though, the girls on the New England teams seem braver than the guys and I wouldn't be suprised. Girls need to have a voice on a team. It lets you see things from all aspects. :D Well, enough said... does anybody know any of the teams in the Arizona Regional this year? My team's going there this year and it would be nice to meet some new people, not from the east coast. :]
yeah. i agree with you. not so much of the fact that i'm a girl but, i know some guys, in general, just tend to do without even thinking. as for the arizona regional, the teasm are: 38 Teams Attending
Team # Team Name City, State 1st Event?
1. 60 Ford/Southwire/Laron Engineering & Kingman High School Kingman, AZ Y
2. 64 GM Desert Proving Ground & Highland High School & Queen Creek High School Mesa, AZ Y
3. 80 Watts Premier & Cortez High School Phoenix, AZ Y
4. 190 WPI & Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science Worcester, MA N
5. 192 Gunn High School & PARC Palo Alto, CA Y
6. 207 Walt Disney Imagineering & C.V.U.H.S.D. and Hawthorne High School Hawthorne, CA Y
7. 234 Rolls-Royce/IUPUI/LHTEC & Perry Meridian High School Indianapolis, IN Y
8. 294 Raytheon/Northrop Grumman/RENT.COM/Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers & Redondo Union High School & Mira Costa High School (Manhattan Beach) Redondo Beach, CA Y
9. 330 J&F Machine/Raytheon/NASA/Goddard/Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers & Hope Chapel Academy Hermosa Beach, CA Y
10. 399 Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers/NASA Dryden Flight Research Center & Lancaster High School Lancaster, CA Y
11. 498 Cactus High School Glendale, AZ Y
12. 585 NASA Dyden Flight Research Facility/Northrop Grumman & Tehachapi High School Tehachapi, CA Y
13. 606 Raytheon Company/The Boeing Company/Northrop Grumman/Employees Community Fund of Boeing California/Los Angeles Trade Tech College & King Drew Magnet High School of Medicine & Science Los Angeles, CA Y
14. 610 The Bank of Nova Scotia/Enbridge Integrated Building Technologies/Siemens Canada Limited/Plan Group Ltd./Torcomp Inc./NOCO Energy Corp. & Crescent School Toronto, ON Y
15. 696 Hamilton Engineering/Glendale Community College & Clark Magnet High School La Crescenta, CA Y
16. 698 Microchip & Hamilton High School Chandler, AZ Y
17. 842 NASA/Inline Inc./Phelps Dodge Corp. & Carl Hayden High School Phoenix, AZ Y
18. 851 Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers & Jubilee Torrance Academy Torrance, CA Y
19. 861 ?? ??, ?? Y
20. 872 NASA/American Electric Power/Columbus State Community College/NSF-DUE & Marion-Franklin High School & Southeast Career Center Columbus, OH Y
21. 888 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center & Glenelg High School Glenelg, MD Y
22. 898 NASA/Quality Machining & Fabrication LLC & Ironwood High School Glendale, AZ Y
23. 973 NASA/Cal Poly SLO & Atascadeo High School Atascadero, CA Y
24. 980 NASA/Crystal View Corp. & Pinewood Academy & Delphi Academy & Mary's Schoolhouse & Renaissance Academy La Canada Flintridge, CA Y
25. 991 Tommy Gate Company/Ryan Companies US, Incorporated/Express Packaging and Crating/Chas Roberts Air Conditioning/Kitchell Contractors/Shaffer's Welding Shop & Brophy College Preparatory Phoenix, AZ Y
26. 996 Casa Grande Union High School Casa Grande, AZ Y
27. 998 NASA/The Challenger Learning Center of Alaska & Soldotna High School Soldotna, AK Y
28. 1011 University of Arizona & Sonoran Science Academy Tucson, AZ Y
29. 1136 NASA/Navair & Mt. Miguel High School Spring Valley, CA Y
30. 1165 Paradise Valley High School Phoenix, AZ Y
31. 1212 Microchip Technology Inc & Seton Catholic High School Chandler, AZ Y
32. 1223 East Valley Institute of Technology Mesa, AZ Y
33. 1290 "Jan's Iron Work & Chandler High School" Chandler, AZ Y
34. 1324 "NASA/Bent River Machine Shop/Phoenix Cement, Inc. & Sedona Red Rock High School" Sedona, AZ Y
35. 1343 "Desert Vista High School" Phoenix, AZ Y
36. 1401 "Universidad del Valle de M‚xico, Lomas Verdes" Naucalpan, MEX Y
37. 1456 "Intel Corporation & Basha High School" Chandler, AZ Y
38. 1492 "Microchip Technology, Inc. & Arizona Community Robotics Team" Chandler, AZ Y

[Lil' Lavery]

Last year we had about 1/3 of the team were girls, including our team captain. This year its not 1/3, maybe 1/4 or so. Most of the girls are on the animation team, but we have one who does alot of the electronics(and last year she did alot of machining. But she also does alot of outreach and PR), 2 working on one of our manipulator groups, including of the sub-teams leaders, and one working code and strategy. Then we have 4 or 5 on animation. We also have 5 female mentors i beleive.

[Simon Strauss]

we've got maybe 4 or 5 girls on our construction team but they never come, the webmaster for our site is also a girl and she is the only one who ever shows up to meetings. its kindof sad, we would like to have more girls on the team but for some reason we can never get that many.

[CollmandosGrl]

Our team technically has about 5 girls out of about 25, but that last weekend before shipping, I noticed on Saturday and Sunday nights that I was the only girl there out of about 10 guys there. Which, dude, any member who wasn't there totally missed out cuz on that first trial we did with our robot, stacking 4 tetras very first time: WOOT!. One girl does our photography, another is the spirit leader, I'm not sure what the other does that shows up, but her father is very useful and the fourth doesn't show up, but she says it looks good on her college application.

[Simon Strauss]

but she says it looks good on her college application.

yeah iv noticed that too, not just the girls but about 60 or 65 people on our 80 member team just seem to be on the team for how it looks on apps and never actualy show up.

[CollmandosGrl]

It really pisses me off because then these people who don't really put in any of the work, get a lot of the benefits from the team. I mean my college application next year won't have a gpa that is nearly as high, but that's because I spend all my free time doing things. She on the other hand will be saying she does all these other things on top of keeping great grades, but really she's just working on the school aspect. Of course she's gonna have good grades when she has time to get 8, maybe even more hours of sleep. Meanwhile I spent last weekend at the robot house til 1 am and this weekend? Yea, I've spent 19 hours at school already for Drama(Stage Managing) and thats where Im leaving to go 5 mins from now. (Little Shop of Horrors play next weekend! =) and then I'll be back at the robot house. I barely even spend 8 hours away from school on the average day. I'm not complaining about the workload, cuz wow, some of the funnest times I end up having are at robot or at drama, but it's a lot of WORK, and she's just getting the credit.

[greencactus3]

well its always about will you feel good about turning lies into colleges?

[Kris Mackinnon]

Three on ours. There was five at the beganing of the year but as you can see we lost two.

[Validius]

To be honest, i would love a few high-school girls on the team. Give a bit of balance.

[vic burg]

there are but not as many as everyone would like.
((sorry if i brought this thread back.)) :(

[the_short1]

hmm i think we got let see:

cara, steph,katelyn, himena. . ok 4 girls.. about 30 team members..
himena and cara are in shop .. steph does animation + sprit and katelyn spirit

[C.Roberts 1089]

I am happy to say that my team (1089) is about half female, maybe a bit under. i believe we have 10 girls and 12 guys on our roster for nats. Personally, I am the human player, and also very involved with scouting and spirit, and learning about electronics and drive train. We also have a female "pit boss" to take charge in the pits and ensure safety, a female spirit coordinator, and and another girl in charge of all the scouting (who is also our team rep for alliance choosing). Many of us are learning more about the actual building of the bot, as none of us are very experienced with this, but one of the girls had a lot to contribute to design this year and was one of the primary people working on the design for the arm on our bot. Myself and another girl also worked on and learned a lot about the electrical system this year.

[Eric301]

We have 6 "girls" on our team out of 10 students that really participate: Bailey, Leslie, Emma, Diane, Kaitlin, and Anna. We're mostly "girls" this year. We won the Detroit regional, so I guess "girls" can build robots too. Here's a mentor's point of view on our young ladies.

Bailey (senior) is a team captain. She leads the mechanical team, does our welding, helps build the robot, writes the business plan, is the drive coach, does a lot of fundraising, and generally acts like a mom for everyone.

Leslie (senior) is also a team captain. She leads the electrical team, constructs the electrical boards, organizes the team meetings, takes meeting minutes, works on fundraising, and provides much of our comic relief. She's also our arm operator.

Emma (senior) was in charge of design and pneumatics. She created the drawings and CAD models that we used to build the robot. She also installed much of the pneumatics on our robot. That was a big task this year.

Diane (senior) has historically been our lead on build and in the pit, but she's had a smaller role this year due to some personal issues.

Kaitlin (Sophomore) helps out where ever she can. She did a great job on the BOM and has taken the lead on managing the batteries in the pit. I suspect she'll be one of the leaders next year.

Anna (Freshman) is learning a lot. She has been great to have around because she puts everything she has into whatever task you give her. I think she'll take more responsibility next year and will ultimately be a leader on the team.

[Katy]

Our team has traditionally had a lot of girls on it...6 year team with 2 male captains.

I do PR work sometimes, I have written award submissions and done chairman's presentations but it was more because I was able to fill that gap. I also ran scouting for two years, was an alliance captain, work on pit crew, have done two leadership positions, have done four years of mechanical and have fun pretending I know what I am doing in electronics. I think that girls with no previous experience, like any member of the team without previous experience, walk in and look for gaps to fill in the team structure. If they can find a gap to fill with inviting people all the better...or at very least a place to be. I think though that with a good training program and a welcoming team girls will randomly gravitate towards any spot.

It is hard to break down girls/guys as far as numbers on our team...we don't really categorize them that way. It is more labeled by "competent/incompetent."

[JDFirefox11]

Team 11, MORT, currently has 65 members, about 12 of which are girls. most of the girls on the team are on the MD's (multi media and documentation) (basically a picture based team that also submits a weekly newsletter to the team and our supporters.) 3 other girls are on the mechanical team, and I am the Student Project Manager for our team. So I am personally proud to be one of the few girls on our team who actually touches the robot, but trust me its not because the girls are discouraged into thinking they aren't aloud to, they just don't want too (though I can't imagine why)

[Crash&Burn]

I am one of three active female members. there are maybe 32 members all together.
One, is the electrician... she's amazing, the only person on the team who can wire the robot.

the other works strictly in the machine room. She's there, constantly working on parts. she was a human player at VCU as well.

I am the Reinassance girl.
I started off by doing logistics; calling companies, making hotel reservations. Then I stepped away from the phone and computer and actually got my hands dirty with the table saw, making bosch trinkets. Now I'm a scout leader.
(I also worked on the Ackerman steering)

There are two or three others that don't come to meetings, but they'd worked on the bot during class.

I, sadly, am the only girl on my team that's going to nationals.

[Jaime648]

On our team we have like 4 girls on the media team and 4 on the build team. on the build team the girls drill, mill, and cut parts for our robot. they do everything the guyz do and the work is equally split.

[Joe_P.]

on our team, we have one girl and she does scouting, chairman's, some PR, and anything she thinks can help... and she did help in the shop during the build season

[chucktchr173]

Team 173 rage- With 24 active students total on our team we have 8 student females. Their roles range from past team president, drive team coach, robot drivers, cheerleaders, spirit, build committee and pit crew. Girls rock so do the guys. We have grown a lot as a team dealing with the male -female thing.

[Termite233]

slightly less than half of our team is girls and thats pretty good for a team with 60-70 kids. I have done field construction and some pit work (not bunches though). Girls do driving. there is only one guy in the pit crew. they other three are girls. Mostly girls are in the spirit team which consists of cheerleading and going to local businesses to get giveaways for competitions. we also work on the buttons. girls work on the chairman's award. they have welded (and that was a scary sight for some of them). We basically do anything that we can.

I also spoke at a VIP luncheon at UCF BECAUSE I'm a girl. they wanted girls giong into engineering. so that was cool.

[vic burg]

On our team we have like 4 girls on the media team and 4 on the build team. on the build team the girls drill, mill, and cut parts for our robot. they do everything the guyz do and the work is equally split.
im the only girl on our build team....and the work is not spread out even.

[CollmandosGrl]

Its lucky to have an all girl team, but unfortunately for some other girls, it's not their faults that they are more cheerleaders than builders. Although I personally can't complain about missing jobs because I was a girl (I helped build, computer program, and was a robot operator for all the practices and competitions), because I was a girl, I was given certain jobs. Regardless of my being a robot operator, when our coach had us interviewed and pictured for a newspaper, I was there because I was a girl and the other guy was there because he was black. We joked about it because we both did deserve to be there, but we were actually there because it made our team look well represented. We're from a southern private school. The black guy was the ONLY black guy on our team of about twenty-five (which actually is a much higher percentage than our schools ratio of black/whole pop) and I was the ONLY girl on the team that did "grunge" work like the guys. Instead of representing other members for their innovative ideas, we were picked based on looks. My coach also told me I'd be the one talking to anyone who came around the pit area to ask about our team. It was convenient because I was nearly always in the pit 'cause I put way too much in to the robot, but I was picked BECAUSE I WAS A GIRL. Granted, I liked doing PR, but it wasn't for the right reasons I was given the job.

[Beth Sweet]

Its lucky to have an all girl team, but unfortunately for some other girls, it's not their faults that they are more cheerleaders than builders. Although I personally can't complain about missing jobs because I was a girl (I helped build, computer program, and was a robot operator for all the practices and competitions), because I was a girl, I was given certain jobs. Regardless of my being a robot operator, when our coach had us interviewed and pictured for a newspaper, I was there because I was a girl and the other guy was there because he was black. We joked about it because we both did deserve to be there, but we were actually there because it made our team look well represented. We're from a southern private school. The black guy was the ONLY black guy on our team of about twenty-five (which actually is a much higher percentage than our schools ratio of black/whole pop) and I was the ONLY girl on the team that did "grunge" work like the guys. Instead of representing other members for their innovative ideas, we were picked based on looks. My coach also told me I'd be the one talking to anyone who came around the pit area to ask about our team. It was convenient because I was nearly always in the pit 'cause I put way too much in to the robot, but I was picked BECAUSE I WAS A GIRL. Granted, I liked doing PR, but it wasn't for the right reasons I was given the job.

Just to play devils advocate and in no way trying to insult or offend you, what evidence do you have that the discussions presented above were based on race and gender as opposed to competence? Were you told or did you just make that assumption?

[CollmandosGrl]

Just to play devils advocate and in no way trying to insult or offend you, what evidence do you have that the discussions presented above were based on race and gender as opposed to competence? Were you told or did you just make that assumption?

Assumption on what exactly?

Did you mean on this thread over all?
This thread is called "Girls on Team".... I think that covers the gender aspect. The race was just another example of some of the unfairness of how a team can be represented....

If you meant on my team:
Otherwise, yes of course I was told I was being picked because I was a girl. I originally felt I was much too busy to be doing PR (I was on field as an operator and otherwise I was in the pit organizing our (AMAZING!!) scouts data or recalibrating the robot). It was a pretty obvious climate of separation as my coach had different "team rules" for me than the rest of the team, some understandable (its a school trip, i have to room alone and stuff as i was the only girl there- really fun spending all night alone in a hotel room until i get to spend later nights next to a girl i didnt know who snored like a whistle), but yes, i was most definitely told such things. The guys were allowed to leave the hotel, didn't have a curfew, etc because I was essentially isolated in my room where I was safe and therefore they couldnt get in trouble. As it was, my coach repeatedly took me off the tryouts list for our arm operator and put me under "PR" and "Team Spirit" because he felt I'd be more comfortable with girls. It was other members of the team that even allowed me to try out and pushed for me to get it because I was the best (at tryouts) and they knew I'd put in the practice effort.

[trout2007]

1 of 25, shes our organizer

[phrontist]

The less you treat this like an issue, the less it will be.

[kireitenshi00]

i have absolutely nothing to say since im on this team, and dain (the starter of this thread), you KNOW you love me! CONGRATS ON GETTING INTO COLLEGE!

677 represent!

[Nuttyman54]

Team 971 has 4 girls out of 20 members, none of whom are particularly active in the club (one is our webmaster, the rest hardly ever show up). I personally have tried to recruit more, but the only ones who are interested tend not to be able to commit the time, being in multiple AP classes AND doing sports AND working part time, etc. etc...it's really a bummer.

[half geek]

This year, despite active recruiting of girls, we only have a single female student. She is picking it up very quickly after only a couple months, and it looks like she has a knack for welding and putting things together. I sincerely hope that her apparent enjoyment of the program will lead to more girls on the team... she is the first we have had on our team since our former team captain moved :(

[Spiffizzle]

It's funny how I'm one of few girls on my team. Personally, I AM the SPIRIT of my team. I'm the only one who will go jump onto the playing field and do the Cotton-Eyed Joe. Right now I'm sitting at a meeting not doing too much so instead I am on here. I'll go take pictures. :D

[Church]

The less you treat this like an issue, the less it will be.

I agree. As long as girls make a big deal out of women engineers, the longer they will be seen as being different.

I'm a girl myself, and I'd rather be treated like "one of the guys" than seen as different.

[melissa]

I'm a girl myself, and I'd rather be treated like "one of the guys" than seen as different.

I agree with you. There are roughly 10 girls on the team this year out of 35... thats pretty good. Of the returning girls, most hold important roles. Some are programmers, mechanical, pneumatics, PR, and the new ones are coming in with lots of interest and enthusiasm. I think the guys on the team do view us as "one of the guys" (or at least me after 4 years of hanging around). I think that the more girls press the issue that they ARE different, they will be viewed as such. Girl or guy, you are a TEAM MEMBER nonetheless, having something valuable to contribute to the team.

[Sam Lipscomb]

This year, even though we have 7 girls out of about 35 team members, 2 of the 3 captains are female. Too bad 4 of the 7 girls leaves at the end of this season... :(

[CarpeDiem]

1/19

[|20807 61|2|_]

we have 4 or 5 girls on our team 2 on endofecter 1 on mobility and i think 1 or 2(??) on animation(??). okay well there we go :-D

[Mme.Miscellania]

2004:
We had five girls, all on whatever needed doing. About 15 guys.
2005:
Seven girls, with 1 mechanical, 2 spirit/publicity (the all-girl part of the team...), and four doing whatever project needed doing. Somewhere around 18 guys.
2006:
It's looking like seven girls, with 3 mechanical, 1 end affect leader, 1 publicity/awards/grants leader, 1 animation and 1 floating.
The girl/guy ratio is about the same as last year for students, but our mentors are almost all male. Lots of team moms, though!

[I'mwithstupid^]

all boys school!

[haywirerobotics]

Since we are an all-girls team, we have lately been interested in the roles of girls on co-ed teams. Some members of my team were doing a survey of the number of girls on teams and their jobs at the Buckeye Regional. We were very disappointed to discover that on some teams, girls were given only the job of cheerleader, or publicist. Continuing that, just please give the number of girls on your team, along w/ the number of students on your team, and what the girls usually do. Thanks a lot!
our team has 14 members, we HAD 4 girls but one dropped out, now we have three...so one of them is the head of PR, one does the website, and the other is in proggramming...

[riboSquirrel]

This seems to be the most common problem. We only have 2 girls on our team, and they both chose to mainly work on PR and such, even though one of them decided to help out where she could on the robot. In her situation she didn't think she was smart enough to do the stuff that was going on. I tried to get to understand that you don't have to understand all of it to be a great member. I don't know if my message got through, but I tried.

I think recruiting women is an important part of the program. And I do mean recruit. You may be lucky enough to have some girls filter into the team by word of mouth, but many times the best female members will come because they are asked. If you ask them to come and they want to, they are more likely to be productive members for the sheer fact that someone felt them valuable enough to ask them to come.

It's important for team members to follow through and invite them to work on different things if they become seemingly unmotivated to be aggressive. This something that not only mentors should do. Team members should encourage other team members to get their say in if they are quiet. Have the older members mentor the younger mentors.

I think the key to having women on a team is to show them that they can do this and it's not a "guy thing." If you tell someone they are stupid and can't do certain things, eventually they will think that (and women are still often told that in respects to engineering). Break that mentality!

In FIRST as in the rest of the world, apathy is our enemy.

we have three girls including myself, one is a junior,i am a sophmore and the others a freshman... thing is... i can't touch the robot(almost killed it last year>.<) but lynn, now SHE is like mighty woman... she is a really good robot driver, and i envy her everfy so often :rolleyes: just because she is alowed to touch the robot and i'm not...

[aallen88]

My freshman year I was pretty much the only girl on my team. Now I'm in my senior year and there's a pretty good handful. Just appeal and support. I know I stuck with the team because I had mentors and students that were so supportive and helped me with every and anything. They never made me feel stupid or frustrated. Let the kids at your school know that robotics is engineering, but there's still a little bit of everything that needs to be done. Now I broke the status quo of my team and became the first girl team captain this year. Hell yes!

[Rohan_DHS]

girls on our team are prettymuch free to take on any role they'd like, if there's something they dont know, and want to learn then we teach them. its pretty open. but mostly, the girls choose to do business oriented tasks. last year, our team president was also a girl.

[Felix_The_Cat]

we actualy had a girl as our president last year :cool:
unfortunately she graduated and is now can't participate much at all
we still have some girls on the team but they tend not to want to lead anything crucial
we are always trying to get girls involved
some choose to help out with the bot others want to do PR
as far as the cheering goes whoever is not driveing the bot becomes the cheer team.

[Robert Flanagan]

We are a small, 3rd year team with only about 20 people on our team. We only have 3 girls on our team but two of them are our president and vice-president and they do an awesome job :)


Robert Flanagan, team 1390, St. Cloud, Florida

[Matt Fultz]

At Cyber Blue, we have a roughly 37 member team. 10 of those members are female. Two are the head students on the PR Team, 4 are on electronics, with one of them as the lead student, and 4 are in manufacturing and design.

[windup zeppelin]

well here on team 1515 we have quite a few girls on our team.all though many are in business and animation we have one who has done most of our electronics and pneumatics.

[kathimm1]

Yeah unfortunatley I am the only girl on team 104 except the teacher.I have tried to get girls to join but have been unsuccessful so far and the first year there was me and another girl.then the next year i was the only one.i showed pictures of the robots which ended up in the trash.

[team 1094]

on the river city robotics are captain was a senior gril and so was our photographer

[dgonza36502]

I agree with you. There are roughly 10 girls on the team this year out of 35... thats pretty good. Of the returning girls, most hold important roles. Some are programmers, mechanical, pneumatics, PR, and the new ones are coming in with lots of interest and enthusiasm. I think the guys on the team do view us as "one of the guys" (or at least me after 4 years of hanging around). I think that the more girls press the issue that they ARE different, they will be viewed as such. Girl or guy, you are a TEAM MEMBER nonetheless, having something valuable to contribute to the team.

I agree with you 100%, I'm a mentor for animation and website design for team 590, all of our team members are Native American, so to us its just a matter of what the team needs to accomplish. We see each other as equals(mostly)whether a veteran or new member, and enjoy the competition for what it is. Normally we have 4-8 girls but we don't see it that way:) :) :)

[Libby K]

Since we are an all-girls team, we have lately been interested in the roles of girls on co-ed teams. Some members of my team were doing a survey of the number of girls on teams and their jobs at the Buckeye Regional. We were very disappointed to discover that on some teams, girls were given only the job of cheerleader, or publicist. Continuing that, just please give the number of girls on your team, along w/ the number of students on your team, and what the girls usually do. Thanks a lot!

We have three girls on 1923. Out of roughly 10 students.
One of them, Amy, is brand-brand new, but has expressed an interest in mechanical/electrical, but at the same time is very artistic. She's going to be very valuable to the team. :)

Katie (Horsegirrl (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/member.php?u=16910) on CD) is our Spirit Captain, and definitely the most energetic person on the team. Originally I had made her join because I felt awkward as the only girl (at the time.) She and her dad fell in love with FIRST. She's very busy, that same dad owns a barn with 17 horses (hence, Horsegirrl), so she's not as active of a member, but without her 1923 would just be a group of kids sitting quietly in the stands (and one very loud driver...:o )

The final girl on 1923, of course, would be me. I started the team in my freshman year, simply because our school didn't have one. I've been going to FIRST events with my dad since I was a little kid, and I couldn't imagine being in high school and actually having FREE TIME between January and March. I'd like to think I do a lot, but you'd probably have to ask my mentor.

[synth3tk]

We had about three - five girls out of about twelve. One helped me with media/website, the twins helped build (they really fit in and liked it), and the other did various tasks. But all of them did what they felt they wanted to do, and we didn't have any problem with girls being on the team doing what they did. Besides, with a small (or even large) team you can use all the help you can get.

[Devon27]

The amount of girls is constantly growing on Team RUSH 27. The year before I joined (2006 Aim High) there were 2 girls out of the 18 members. One did electrical and programming work and the other did mechanical stuff. Last year (2007 Rack n' Roll) we had 6 girls out of 26 members 5 of the girls did mechanical stuff and just 1 did business stuff. This year we have 11 girls out of the 31 members and the team lets us choose whatever position we want, programming and electrical, mechanical, inventor, or business.

[1527Michiru]

I'm the only girl on my team, head of (and only) ADMIN, and Vice President.
I also hang out in the shop when admin has been taken care of to find out what's happening with the bot, and how I can help.

I've also been learning more web design from our web master. I like to learn a bit of everything.

We have about 7 people officially on the team. We will hopefully have more by next semester. . .if all the recruting works. :P

~Casey

[synth3tk]

[off-topic] What are you doing for recruting? We started a robotics class this year, so that helps. But do you post flyers, morning announcements, etc? [/off-topic]

[midway78224]

on 457 we have 18 girls on a roster of 45 students

[meadster]

in responce to batbotcrewfrosh comment we have 5 member 2 of them are girls. So the role for girls on our team is different to those of larger teams.

[smurfgirl]

When I joined in fall 2005, there were 4 girls of 24 students. That year, we had:

Strategy: 1
Mechanical: 1
Spirit/Fundraising: 2

This year, there are officially 16 (out of about 50), many of whom are rarely at meetings. Here's the breakdown:

Leadership: 1
Strategy: 1 (same person as leadership)
Mechanical: 2
Spirit/Fundraising: 12
Photographer: 1

I'm very disappointed by this, to be honest. By no means am I trying to say that I think spirit, fundraising, and community activities are less important or any less work than building the robot- I am well aware that they are a huge part of building a balanced and successful team. Unfortunately, the majority of my team does not seem to agree with me there. And of course it's the girls who get recruited to do these so-called "worthless" and "easy" jobs, because my team seems to think that's all the girls are capable of. I could go on about this for a long time... but in short, everyone on the team, sometimes including the girls themselves, underestimate their worth and push away from anything related to the robot itself.

[pandaF]

We have three girls of about 15 students. I am a student leader along with two other boys. I also do milling, and work on the robot. I am the teams secretary and the loudest cheerleader you will find on our team.

Another girl does programming, and organizes scouting. The other girl does most of our scouting and makes buttons and t-shirts, team image stuff.

Our girls are pretty even with doing technical work and what would be considered "girly" work. :D

[MiniNerd24]

Our team has about 4 (or five) girls on a team of 12

[GaryVoshol]

Looks like 1025's latest headcount is

7 girls, 7 boys
One female engineer, one male
Two female teacher mentors.

[team1203 4life]

we have about ten on our team and they do the same jobs as the guys minus lifting heavy stuff

[otomerobot]

On our team we have about twenty to thirty people. Those including, nine mentors and about twenty or so students. About fifteen of the students are active, the rest are more on the cheering side. In our team we have a total of six women, three mentors and three students.

The Miczek sisters are both mentors and help on the sponsoring and the cheering.
Mrs. Leland is helping along with the Miczek sisters.
Maria Cantos is working on the programing of the robot.
Jen Rodriquez is helping with the mechanical work.
Daisy Delgado (me) I am working on the electrical part along with the drawings of the robot.

[GaryVoshol]

we have about ten on our team and they do the same jobs as the guys minus lifting heavy stuff

And why can't the girls do that?

In a previous year, a couple of girls were lifting the robot onto the field. The robot probably outweighed both of them. A coach from another team was overheard telling his strapping guys, "I don't want to ever hear you complaining about lifting the robot again!"

[1086wulf]

We have only two girls on the team. They are both in the PR/Chairman groups. They don't build the robot so much as organize meetings and coordinate spirit.

[1086wulf]

The fact that the girls don't do the building or heavy lifting has nothing to do with their gender so much as they made personal choices not to do those things.

[JaneYoung]

And why can't the girls do that?

In a previous year, a couple of girls were lifting the robot onto the field. The robot probably outweighed both of them. A coach from another team was overheard telling his strapping guys, "I don't want to ever hear you complaining about lifting the robot again!"

Team members are going to participate in every way they can to help support the team. In '06, one of our girls did a great job at packing the trailer for travel, directing everyone in how she wanted it loaded. That was not all she did by any means, but she was the first girl to take on that job and since I haul the trailer, I appreciated her sound decisions.

in '07 and '08, our student leader has been an excellent role model for new members in showing them that there comes a point when gender just doesn't matter in what a team member can contribute on a robotics team. She is physically one of the smallest members of the team, but she is one of the most robust in her attitude and in her actions.

[otomerobot]

I think that is true. From my experience a lot of girls out there dont think that they have the potential to do something "manly" or equal to the other gender. So they stick to the "women" work and all that has to do with the cheering, I personally know that that is important it helps the team communicate with their community.
Me personally I try to do everything during robotics building season. During last years season I was using machines and milling pices of metal and working the "dirty" work.
I think that girls should put themselves more out there, their just as tough as the other gender. But yet again, now that I think of it, it is their choice. :)

Just thought I'd make a point.:D

[feliks_rosenber]

We had 1 girl last year who was doing the "dirty" mechanical work and 2 girls who did the decoration and painting.

This year we have about the same number of girls on our team.One will be helping with the construction of the arena for training and the others will do the painting, cheerleading and such.

And that's about it as to team 2217 :)

[Otaku]

We have more girls this year, freshmen, as the Junior Girls in robotics were in it before.

Lets see...

One's on the build team and works in the shop (although she isn't trained on the machines, so we don't let her use them, but then again there's like three people who ARE allowed to use them sans mentors). She's one of the most useful people I've met. She gets the job done when it needs to be without griping (unlike some of her classmates).

Another one helps write out plans and organize stuff and whatnot. Also extremely useful. She made our numerous rules binders, and if I'm not mistaken, she also alphabetized our sign-in binders. And her handwriting is tooooooons better than the chicken-scratch you see from most of us.


There's one or three more, but they're not hugely notable simply because we have so many people that very few of us do a ton of work, it's usually pretty well distributed, especially outside of the shop. In the shop... towards 5pm or so people start dropping out for the day and the workload gets less distributed -- that's also the time that a lot of stuff gets done... hmm.


anywho, I'm rambling and I'm in science class so I should stop posting on delphi (and looking at dial calipers) and get back to work.

[rachal]

On 1072, two of the officers are girls -- I'm captain, formerly of mechanical, as is our secretary.

There's also a programmer, and several more on PR and mechanical. Gender differences aren't really an issue, I think, even though less girls join.

We also have an...interesting afterschool bathroom policy.

Guy above me: We're making new buttons this year. You coming to Davis? Eh, I need to get a new dial caliper too.

[Otaku]

On 1072, two of the officers are girls -- I'm captain, formerly of mechanical, as is our secretary.

There's also a programmer, and several more on PR and mechanical. Gender differences aren't really an issue, I think, even though less girls join.

We also have an...interesting afterschool bathroom policy.

Guy above me: We're making new buttons this year. You coming to Davis? Eh, I need to get a new dial caliper too.

I should be going to davis, yeh. Last year I was the guy with the sweatshirt that had the front covered in buttons and the back on my shoulders covered in 1351 buttons (the turquoise ones). Also, new 1072 buttons!? PREPOSTEROUS.

Our team is pretty unbaised -- we let anybody join on the premesis that they get work done -- otherwise they're just a waste of space. Race and gender don't matter here (although our school is a largely white/male school, which is a shame really, because a little diversity does a school good). It just so happens that the majority of the people interested in doing robotics at our school are male.

[lukevanoort]

While girls are a minority on my team, the difference isn't staggering by any means. I'd say it is about 2/3 guys, 1/3 girls; so it is a noticeable difference, but not as bad as some teams. Pretty much any job can and is done by anyone, regardless of gender; we have female and male drivers, coaches, human players, PR types, builders, etc. I think the majority of the girls are in PR, but that isn't really saying much because the majority of the team is in PR.

And why can't the girls do that?

In a previous year, a couple of girls were lifting the robot onto the field. The robot probably outweighed both of them. A coach from another team was overheard telling his strapping guys, "I don't want to ever hear you complaining about lifting the robot again!"
That actually worries me a bit. Unless you are utilizing hyperbole, it seems to me that having someone carry more than half their body weight around is probably not a good idea. That's almost like me carrying the entire robot around (sans battery+bumpers) by myself, which is something I would never dream of doing.

[JaneYoung]

It just so happens that the majority of the people interested in doing robotics at our school are male.

Once the girls start getting involved in the team, they continue to help the program develop and grow, showing that girls are welcome on the team and are valued as team members. Not too very long ago we had 1 female, then 4. My last count at the beginning of December was 17 but we may have more now. Once girls' involvement starts, it grows and develops naturally. Along with that, our veteran team members are mentoring new members as they come in, so that the cycle of entering and leaving the team doesn't impact the efficiency and knowledge base of of the team. We have worked on developing this stability over the past few years.

[Setsanto]

Hi,

We have one girl who is involved in actual build, one who is our business manager, and one who is what could be termed "project manager". Basically shes in charge of everything. They all play important roles and its great to have them on our team.

~Setsanto

[SqueaksZombie]

We have 2 girls on our 10 person team, and we try to do a little of everything.
Heavy lifting's no problem :D

[SoJ]

I think about seven out of seventeen people on our team are girls. Most of them do the leadership stuffs (I'm not sure if there are any guys doing that), but we've got one who does some programming. Unfortunately, I think she's the only one who gets out of all the paperwork.

[Devon27]

The count for this year is 12 girls out of 33 students, the number of girls has doubled this year!

build:7 of 15
business:3 of 4
media:1 of 3
special projects: 1 of 3
programming, 12 volt systems, and advanced electrical: 0 of 8

I guess we are kind of weak from a programming and electrical perspective but other than that, there is a girl in every subteam.

[kDude]

We have four girls on our team. One is the head of marketing with another one helping, another is the head of programming, and the last one is one of the two captains we have.

[MOE]

:yikes: HELLOoooo from the North East
We have 44 students this year 11 girls and 33 boys. Some years we have been 50/50 each year is different, some times we have had more girls than boys, we have been in FIRST since 1996. GOOD LUCK TO ALL :D
SEE you Sooooooon
MOE and Team 88 TJ2

[RoboKid1566]

we have33 members on our team. with about 7 girls on our team...3 who don't show up for anything:rolleyes: .. we all do a little bit of everything...its fun

[irigoyennorma]

The problem is, none of them take real initiative to do any of the design work, or fundraising or chairmans stuff. One of the parents on the team blame it on intimidation, most of us guys are pretty scary I guess.

I am trying to make them do more work and get involved, but its hard, Im not quite sure that they have the desire to learn, and if they dont, they are on the team for the wrong reasons.

I am really disappointed to hear this,because I believe that females should be leaders in this type field as much as men are; I believe that they should be as "scary" as the guys.

But I cannot completely say that women are not ding their part, because our team is proof of it.
Out of the 50 members in our team 19 of them are girls, including myself. And I am very proud to say that they do , if not more, the same amount of work as the boys on our team.
We have girls that have jobs from making the Scrap book to girls that take care of all the electronics! The girls on our team have learned that nothing is impossible because they are women and because society has made things how they are. They might be women on the outside, but in the inside they are as alike as a man. :)

[JaneYoung]

I am really disappointed to hear this,because I believe that females should be leaders in this type field as much as men are; I believe that they should be as "scary" as the guys.


Perhaps in the initial quote regarding being intimidated, it may be partially that and also, it may be hard for members (old and new) to take ownership of their contributions to the team.
After the new members are made to feel welcome and offered opportunities to learn, train, be a part of the team, then it is up to each of them to step up and accept the challenge of being on the team in whatever capacity they are assigned or they choose. By stepping up, they are each taking ownership. Some are timid or just don't 'get it' for a year or so. Those require patience. Some 'get it' right away and are able to work through their shyness and the intimidation factor. That is why it is so important that veteran members, both students and mentors, support the process of building a team.

[woogit]

we have 25 people
5 of whom are girls
one is Poj. manager
one is fundraising
and the other three including me are machinists...

[The_Laughing_ManMII]

we only have a few girls and most of them are on PR. Megan biulds with us though!

[charmed862]

We have 4 girls including me, i am one of the two secretaries and the other two are very helful with the build and design. But it's fun haveing the guys scared of us, lol

[Brad Voracek]

I think about 22 of our 48 member team are girls, and they are fairly dispersed across building the robot, our design/autodesk team, and our PR team.

None of them are on our programming team, but that's small with only ~5 members, so... Yeah. Hehe.

[Kat Kononov]

My school didn't use to have an FRC team, but my friend and I (two girls) started the one. Our team is about 50/50 and most of the girls actually do hands on things. Several of our girls are better with tools than guys are.

[Ricki E.]

We have six girls out of about 35 members. Five of them machine, 1 is the documentarian/lead scout and the other does electronics!

I partake in the electrical work.

I wish we had girls in all other aspects of our team.


But we all have lots of spirit for our team, taking into consideration that the boys dont have as much energy as us girls!

GO GIRLS!!

Hehehe :]

[mbeardsworth]

We have 2 girls on our 15ish member team. One of them is a code monkey who does a bit of electronics on the side. The other is our art genius. I taught her to solder on Saturday, and now she's in charge of soldering everything. (She's very good at it.)

[Spiffizzle]

Our team has about 45 members with 9 of them being girls. Presently, I am a Co-Team leader and get quite involved in our mechanical aspects as well. I do the awards submissions as well... but all the girls on my team are versatile.

[fishgurl]

On our team, there are 4 girls (including myself), 16 total. I'm the VP, another is pretty much the head of the electronics team, the two others are pnumatics and extrenius. Last year, I was the only one, but that was because we wern't able to advertise for a while. Neat question.

[DarkFlame145]

we have 2 leaders, but have equal power and responsibility and normally on of them is a girl, ever since i joined we have had girl shop leaders. Except this year, there is no one shop leader. The returning members just tell the new guys what to do and make them our lackies =P.

[elvin23]

we have a girls team and a guys team we work together and get things done so im happy we have girls they make life better for everyone :D

[limeyj]

There are 3 of 25 on our team are girls, and all of the girls are in different sections, i am on the shop team, one girl is on the controls and one girl is on the PR team.

[1073girls]

Team 1073 is lacking in the female department. We have 50 students and 13 mentors. Of all those people we have only 2 female students and 3 female mentors.

The female students on the team do a lot of the business work, as well as building the bumpers. The teacher that runs the team at our school is a female, and she helps with all the different areas of the team.

We're looking for ways to improve our girl:guy ratio. Have any suggestions?

[Molten]

I was at the Buckeye last year and didn't notice this problem. It might have been that I wasn't looking for it, but I certainly didn't notice. I do know 1 girl on our team who did the stereotypical secretary jobs because she knew she was the best for the job. It was not because she was a girl, it was because she was the best person suited to the job.

FYI: It is not the only job she did. She was also one of the main people on our desing team.

[angelc24]

Over the years we've increased our guy:girl ratios.
Our rookie year we had 1 girl; now we have 10.

The software, electrical, drive train and arm team are all led by girls, and our steering committee student members are all female as well. The girls on the team are actually the most dedicated members. I, for example, lead the software team, help write and present chairmans, and show up to most of the off season events.

We really found that encouraging your friends to come to robotics really helps, as well as taking girls to any and all PR events involving younger kids. We also have FLL teams that the girls mentor, which definitly brings in girls.

The best thing is to encourage girls to come and make sure they are familiar with all the machinery. It's a little scary to show up the first day and work with all these guys who seem to have been playing with drills, hammers and saws their entire lives. We tend to float towards sterotypical female jobs because we feel most comfortable there. Make them just as comfortable with the tools as they are with writing, you'll be surprised how much they'll do. Guys are just pushier when it comes to technology and building stuff; we are no less interested.

[PrincessJae]

As a rookie team, there are 10 of us and I, the only girl. I basically am in charge of electronics and help out a lot with programming. I mean, since theres only 10 of us were all key players in the entire project.

[JaneYoung]

We're looking for ways to improve our girl:guy ratio. Have any suggestions?

Developing the girl/guy ratio on the team can sometimes take a while. The way to help it develop is for the girls that are members on the team to enjoy their experience. They will market and promote the team by expressing their enthusiasm.

Another way is to develop a program of recruitment and orientation at the beginning of the year, working with the school administration and teachers. Visit classes for 5 to 10 minutes, depending on what the teachers will allot you and make a presentation regarding the team and what you do. Don't just visit science and technology classes, visit liberal arts classes. That is where you will find writers and artists that will help in areas like the Chairman's, the Woodie Flowers, promotion and marketing, and spirit.

If you have any questions, PM me and I'll share our recruitment/orientation program with you.

Also, Molten's post is a wise one to think about. I'm not sure there are stereotypical jobs on FIRST teams. There may be teams made up of individuals who have that mindset but as teams develop, it becomes - who is the best person for the job.

If you have 2 or 3 or 5 girls on the team, celebrate that and help it grow. The 2008 team is not the 2007 team and won't be the 2009 team. Every year is a new year and a new opportunity for growth and development as a FIRST team. It's very cool.

[Blue_Mist]

One of our Co-Presidents is a girl who is also in charge of the programming. This year we're about evenly matched in guys vs. girls who lead different sections. However, we only have about twenty people on the member list, and ten or so who show up regularly and work. One girl is really great at PR and loves to do that at competitions. Our entire team scouts when possible, and it helps that some of the parents help scout. Right now, though, we have no women mentors.

To even out the numbers between girls and guys, it helps to have enthusiastic people who aren't too insane. I think I unintentionally scare people away by being too enthusiastic. People just think I'm weird. But I take it as a compliment!

In all seriousness, advertise for spectator-friendly competitions that are nearby, maybe a team-organized off-season match. This means you aren't frantically trying to finish the robot and at the same time trying to teach someone who has trouble telling a nut from a bolt how to build the drive train. People are generally more sympathetic and patient if they aren't under incredible stress, and we've had at least one potential member leave because the (few) veterans were under stress and snapped a few times. Girl or guy, always remember that every team member is valuable.

It also helps if you bring your Robotics advertisements to places where the mainstream of the school will see and notice it. Your marketing flier might be the most awesome and eye-catching, but it will catch no eyes if there are no eyes around for it to catch.

[christina_omg]

my team is broken down into divisions with a vice president for each.

im the vice president of mechanisms and the marshal of common sense =]

[Team Lucky]

sry none but we should my friends are grls and they r geniouses

[sishu7]

30 people, 4 girls.

Girl #1: Team Captain, mechanical team membr.
Girl #2: Marketing team captain, mechanical team member (me!)
Girl #3: marketing team, mechanical team secondary captain
Girl #4: Control systems/electricla team member

So... girls are 4/30 on the team and 3/10 in all leadership roles... not so shabby. And we are all engineers.

[cmonkey99]

We have about 10 students on our team and 2 of them are girls, one of them being our president.
It usually ends up during a meeting with a couple of the guys and the girls working on the robot while everybody else shoots the breeze. \
Then the mentors step in and say all of us haven't done anything.
But the mentors really do TOO much (control everything). :rolleyes:

[deejay021]

... sigh... team 2549...2 girs... like 13 total... wanted to be cheerleaders...so basically unneeded distraction...

[Behr]

We only have two on the team, but one is the team leader and I (I'm on my friends account cause we're too lazy to sign out.) really just yell at people to do things and keep everything organized.
Also, I'm gonna paint our robot.

[deejay021]

... sigh... team 2549...2 girs... like 13 total... wanted to be cheerleaders...so basically unneeded distraction...
CORRECTION... theres 4 girls...2 cheerleaders and 2 co safety captains...also one is working on mech and another on electrical...

[Danielle Fox]

Our team has three girls of about twenty-four. One is a junior on electrical, and the other two are juniors (myself included) on acquistion/elevation:]

[IndySam]

We have four girls on our team right now, three of them are rookies.

If I had a team composed of students like these four we would win the championship for sure. They are all great.

[chattycat14]

Hey-
There is three girls on our team, I do programming and I also helped out with the robot, and i'm i guess suppose to do scouting but i don't know if still am. Another girl is in charge of the scouting, and the third just comes, haha i don't know what she really does.

=D

[JennyB314]

I'm currently the only girl on my team and I am captain of the team. :)

[Carlee10]

I'm one of only technically 3 or 4 girls on my team. I know I'm new to this(I joined my freshman year w/o any experience), and now I can do drive train and assembly. I don't really care that there aren't many girls on the team; it doesn't really bother me much. Whoever is good at the job(I.E. PR, electronics, robot stuff) should do what needs to be done, whether or not your a boy or a girl.

[elphie1990]

We have 3 girls on team of 23. One of the girls was recommended to us by our video production teacher to help us take and compile our videos and photos. The other girl is her assistant, and is learning how to do video production. I am the third girl on the team, as well as President and Treasurer of the club and Captain of the team. I do everything from build mock ups of the field, to fill in as the robot driver, to hotel planning, and everything in between. (My father is the head advisor, so I get tossed around from group to group when people are absent. All of you who are advisor's kids will understand wht I mean :ahh: )

[shadowalker]

funny thing is we have 2 grls on our team but they r the most helpful and we r a rookie team so we need alll the help we can get from them:D

[MiniNerd24]

It seems like a number of teams have an average of two to three girls each.

[RoXmySoX]

well there are only three girls on our team. and we all have active roles on working on the robot. the guys didnt want us on the "cheerleading" team, and gave us specific positions. I am a Hardware Team Lead. My other friend is part of my team, and me and her had our idea for making two levels for all the connections. The last girl is also getting dirty, drilling holes and everything. So im happy to say we dont have the role of the cheerleaders, but an actual part of the team.:)

[shadowalker]

I thnk grls probably do more thn a guy bcuz they want to prove they can do btr guys in any situation

[JaneYoung]

It seems like a number of teams have an average of two to three girls each.

It does seem like that. What will be interesting will be to have some of the teams post again in a couple of years and see how the teams have grown and how many girls have joined.

[Devon27]

It does seem like that. What will be interesting will be to have some the teams post again in a couple of years and see how the teams have grown and how many girls have joined.

I agree, on our team there has been a tremendous amount of growth but especially with girls, 2 years ago there were 2 girls on the team, this year there are 12!!!

[CPUgirl]

On our team there are 4 girls, myself included of course. I'm in charge of the three of them though because if I don't give them things to do they really don't do anything, that or complain that I didn't give them anything to do. They don't like to be useless which is good but they rely on me for things to do.

Adena and Adara are twins, both seniors and they work on tasks that I ask them. Adara takes care of the blog so she keeps track of daily accounts. Adara helps out her sister and keeps track of things going on, and changes in what's going on with the team to tell her sister and myself.

Kiwi, a junior, she makes the logo and designs things like our shirts and posters for the team.

I'm a sophomore. I manage our website on my own, video record everything, take pictures, help out with anything our two captains need and act as a secretary for the team as well as treasurer. Last year I the awards, send out letters and this year I'm mainly too busy to do that yet but I ran an interview of our captain, Alex for our city/school's personal TV channel. I do a lot but not really machinery or programming because we've got the guys doing that, our captains are the best two guys you can find and everyone's close so they let me sleep if i'm exhausted during a practice.

The guys really baby the girls on the team. They're quite protective of us. The other girls aren't around all the time but I have to be so the guys baby me a lot more than the others. They constantly check in to make sure I'm okay and they really don't like me to be in situations where they could do something and hurt me. The guys let us do anything we want to help and they let me do what I do best and that's what I let the other girls do too.

[JoeJank103]

Our team has eight girls out of twenty-four students on it.

[QuietOne]

I am not on an all girls team but I am on a team. My team has about 6 girls and I am the oldest student girl because I started and that was my teams rookie year in 2005. My team is Team 1544 the Arctic Ice Bears. Our team drink is Mountain Dew(notice the avatar).:D :cool: :yikes: :]

[DevilsTech99]

I thnk grls probably do more thn a guy bcuz they want to prove they can do btr guys in any situation

Too true! We have to prove ourselves b/c guys dont believe we can. I joined this year and we have 7 girls on our team. 6 of us are new to the team. 3 are on mechanical, 2 on marketing, 1 on software, and me, the head of electrical:D

[chelseymelsey]

We have 3 people on our entire team and we all are girls. :yikes: One of us works in programming, and one of us designing and building. One floats

[dscreen11]

Since we are an all-girls team, we have lately been interested in the roles of girls on co-ed teams. Some members of my team were doing a survey of the number of girls on teams and their jobs at the Buckeye Regional. We were very disappointed to discover that on some teams, girls were given only the job of cheerleader, or publicist. Continuing that, just please give the number of girls on your team, along w/ the number of students on your team, and what the girls usually do. Thanks a lot!

My team is an all-girls team so I can't really answer your question. And I can understand why you are upset (since I too am a girl).

[chinckley]

We have 3 people on our entire team and we all are girls. :yikes: One of us works in programming, and one of us designing and building. One floats

We too are a small team. Not all girls though. How are you going to handle competition? Who is going to stay in the pit as safety captain and who is going on the floor?

Good Luck...

Carolyn Hinckley

[MiniNerd24]

Too true! We have to prove ourselves b/c guys dont believe we can. I joined this year and we have 7 girls on our team. 6 of us are new to the team. 3 are on mechanical, 2 on marketing, 1 on software, and me, the head of electrical:D

Don't worry about that DevilsTech. Luckily our whole team (including me) is nice enough to believe the girls on our team can do very well with what they are doing for the rest of the team.

[torra12]

yeah, my team is all girls as well, and its really interesting to hear about the work girls do on other teams. i think recruiting girls is important, but i also know that it comes down to the individual and their interests. on our team, though, we have plenty of girls intersted in building the robot..so maybe on co ed teams..girls are intimidated. i guess the best way to deal with it would be to have more involved female mentors....

[muffinxo]

There are 4 girls, but it feels like 3 out of 28ish members.

I'm head electronics
Kelsey is a machinist/ cooperate image
Paige does inventor and autocad design
- all three of us doing public relations and chairman stuff
and the fourth girl is strictly a welder

[ShotgunNinja]

We have about 3-4 girls (some never come, so I'm not sure). Although most of them DO fall into the stereotype mentioned above, there is one on our team who does actually help out with everything.

[Mitch1525]

on 1525, there are 3 girls, one on electrical / chairmans, one who floats and helps wherever needed, and me. I'm big on pictures, team spirit, and i learned the mill this year. This is my third year, and the guy on my team are still quite sexist. I took a welding class this summer to try and prove *yes i felt it necessary to prove myself* that I could help out, but the guys won't let me weld. Our welder is self taught and truthfully, is not perfect. I respect him and I believe that he does a good job, but he constantly puts me down and I'm quite sick of it. But I deal and I just try to help anyone that needs it.

I was wondering if you had any suggestions on getting rid of the sexism because our mentor doesn't seem very motivated to do anythying about it.

[Blue_Mist]

I'm guessing that your mentor is male, here. Try talking to your mentor and telling him that you do not appreciate his apathy. Apparently this mentor has lost sight of FIRST and most of what FIRST stands for- building the team. It stands for many other things as well, don't get me wrong, but this is most pertinent to the matter at hand.

Whether a team member is a guy or a girl makes no difference. The important thing is to ensure that each learns and becomes competent as well as inspired, leaving gender out of the equation. If a member of the team is being pushed down by other members, what does that make the team? As part of the Gracious and Professional organization that is FIRST, every team should be taking care of their own people, for it is the people which make up the team.

As for the boys, tell them that you do not appreciate it. This isn't a joke, and being FIRSTers, they ought to know better. These boys should know that you are capable, and should allow your competence to assist the team, instead of cutting off a vital resource.

[Boydean]

(My father is the head advisor, so I get tossed around from group to group when people are absent. All of you who are advisor's kids will understand wht I mean :ahh: )

Yeah, I know precisely what you mean. My dad is the coach of our team.

We have no girls(- two mentors) on the team right now, but it is an issue that we are trying avoid by next year.

[ManicMechanic]

We have 6 guys and 1 gal on our (FTC) team. The gal is the head programmer and a builder. The 2 mentors are male and female (myself). He takes care of food, room, and school administration, and I handle the robotic aspects and FIRST administration.

I have noticed some frustration about the treatment of women in engineering in this thread. Having been immersed in STEM (sci/tech/engineering/math) since HS/college in the late '70s and early 80's (ouch, that's 30+ years!), I wanted to offer my perspective and encouragement to younger women.

No doubt, life in STEM is not always easy for women, and I have experienced prejudice and disrespect in some predominantly male school and work environments. But alongside that, I have found other men who were encouraging, and some who bent over backwards to assist me because I was a woman. It's your choice to focus on the voices that bring you down or the ones that bring you up. If you need help, ask for it. In the rare situation when there are no encouraging voices, I have always found that a job well done is the most effective way to silence the scoffers -- good work speaks for itself.

One important aspect of gaining respect is knowing yourself and being realistic about your strengths and weaknesses. There are some girls who think they are being dissed for being girls, when the reality is that sometimes, they not respected because they think they are better than they are. As an EE major, I spent 60-80 hours/week to get mostly C's in EE classes, with only my math classes salvaging my GPA. I came to the realization that at best I could only be a mediocre engineer and instead went to graduate school in math, which I now teach at a junior college. There are women who are truly gifted engineers, but I'm not one of them. If you are a gifted engineer, you go girl! But if your gift is technical writing, don't let others tell you, "Girls shouldn't get stuck doing the journal." That kind of talk pushed me into an engineering degree that was unsuitable, and I had to go back to grad school to rectify it.

Women sometimes get opportunities that they wouldn’t have if they were men. When I was a senior, I receive unsolicited invitations to interview, even though I had a 3.2 GPA, while male classmates with 3.8 GPAs and more work experience were unable to beg interviews with the same companies. More currently, I know of a college that offers 2 engineering scholarships: anyone can apply for the first scholarship but only women or underrepresented minorities can apply for the second. Women get 2 shots at a full ride, while Asian/Caucasian males only get one, with a lot less competition for the second spot. It's not as easy for talented white males to get noticed, and we do them and ourselves a disservice when we gripe about the plight of women without acknowledging their challenges as well.

Should we make use of this "unfair advantage?" As compensation for the disadvantages that sometimes come with being a woman, I feel that making judicious use of any opportunity that comes your way is fair game. Perhaps because of my gender, I have an interesting track record with interviews: I have received a job offer for every job that I've interviewed for (except for fast food jobs I was turned down for while a student). But to avoid taking advantage of the situation, I have chosen never to interview for a job unless I am genuinely interested in the position, and once hired, I aim to do the job in such a way that my employer has no regrets. This includes refusing to take a job for which I know I'm not qualified.

Life is not fair (if it were, I would take my turn at being one of the world's 3 million hungry), but it doesn't have to be fair to be good. If you find your calling and the right niche in this world, you are blessed indeed, no matter how "high" or "low" you are in relation to others.

[Jim E]

Team 1523 been actively recruiting females to join the predominately male team.
It is starting to work. The girls are not seeking the robot captains positions ...yet, but they participate in the Robot-building, PR, Programming, Spirit, etc.

It is refreshing to see these 4-5 young ladies learn new skills without any hesitation. They are a welcome addition to the team and I look forward to the day when 1523 adds some female engineering mentors, who served on the team in HS.

[becca09]

Thats very sad to here that some teams that have girls that do cheerleading and sprit. On our team 904 we have 39 members and 11 females. The females are aloud to do what they would like to do. We have 4 females on build and the rest are spread out throught all the different cells. Our team is very open to let people do what they would like to help out with and we are opened mind to many things...

This year we have the most females out of 7 years.

Hope that other teams become more open to let females help with other things..

[QuietOne]

In my school girls walk into our room as they pass by at lunch, they ask whats going on. They seem interested but once they see the number of guys they run for they get intimidated and we never see them again. :( :( :(

[JaneYoung]

In my school girls walk into our room as they pass by at lunch, they ask whats going on. They seem interested but once they see the number of guys they run for they get intimidated and we never see them again. :( :( :(

If they are coming by at lunch, that is a positive, they are showing interest. Use that to your advantage. Think about going to find them during lunch or before school and ask them to come help with a specific job. Have one in mind.

Something like, 'hey, I saw you stop by and wondered if you would be interested in helping with this, this, or this?' Give them a job that you need done but that won't make a big demand on them or their time - just something to catch their interest.

Or - if you have a part of your robot working that you guys are excited about, ask them if they would like to stop by and see what the team has just been working on. Explain what it does and what you did to help.

If they don't show interest or don't want to, at least you have made an effort to show them that they are welcome. Some times it is very small steps that lead up to achievement.

[Miner]

We started an all girls team this year. We ended up having 3 girls on the team and us guys have taught them alot. Now they are pretty much doing it all on their own!

[ManicMechanic]

In my school girls walk into our room as they pass by at lunch, they ask whats going on. They seem interested but once they see the number of guys they run for they get intimidated and we never see them again. :( :( :(

Is there some simple robotic task (~15-20 minutes) like a simple model to build (with easy step-by-step instructions) or something on the computer that could captivate their attention and keep them in the room? They're more likely to forget their discomfort of being outnumbered if they feel successful in doing a task.

Our one girl was snagged when she came to my house & was captivated by my son's LEGO RIS kit. She started the tutorial, 2 hours later, convinced her mom to start an FLL team, and has now graduated to our HS Vex team.

[Tiix]

I am the only girl on the team... Half the guys are Jerks and do squat... They sit and watch as I carry all the supplies and the robot back and forth... but then again... I am the one who is always knowing what is going on and get to tell them what they should do ^_^ so I guess it all evens out in the end...

[Zultraranger]

Since we are an all-girls team, we have lately been interested in the roles of girls on co-ed teams. Some members of my team were doing a survey of the number of girls on teams and their jobs at the Buckeye Regional. We were very disappointed to discover that on some teams, girls were given only the job of cheerleader, or publicist. Continuing that, just please give the number of girls on your team, along w/ the number of students on your team, and what the girls usually do. Thanks a lot!
Is your team successful in competition?

[ManicMechanic]

I'm one of only technically 3 or 4 girls on my team.

Water Bandit23, I got your PM with questions, but your account is blocked for PM's or e-mail. E-mail me, and I'll send a reply.

Yolande

[iTHOS=awesome]

We have three girls that are all Juniors in HS. Two of them are on a marketing team trying to raise money, the other one tries to do stuff to help with the hardware ... but usually (no offense to girls in general) gets in the way and slows us down when others are trying to work.

[Mike Schreiber]

Team RUSH is a great advocate of women in engineering. We have 32 members and approximately 1/3 are girls (not sure of the exact #). They have a variety of roles and do things just like the guys. Although there are some interested in business oriented skills, we have many females interested (and quite capable) of mechanical work.

As of now, engineering is a man's world (not to be sexist), but I know FIRST has had an impact and definitely inspired many women to become engineers, I just hope that all teams can gain the interest by girls that Team RUSH has been able to generate.

[Blue_Mist]

Team RUSH is a great advocate of women in engineering. Although there are some interested in business oriented skills, we have many females interested (and quite capable) of mechanical work.

Good job! I'm certain that leads to a better team and better people in general. Women are just as capable, but usually not as loud about it as men.

As of now, engineering is a man's world (not to be sexist), but I know FIRST has had an impact and definitely inspired many women to become engineers, I just hope that all teams can gain the interest by girls that Team RUSH has been able to generate.

Well, then, let's make it an equal opportunity field and remove the glass ceiling! M. Krass said excellently in a post earlier this thread that as an unspoken rule, men are able to try and try again without ridicule, while women tend to be discouraged from trying again after failing. Let's all make sure that women have the same opportunities to try and try again, since no one likes being pushed down for not being perfect on the first attempt.

[J-me]

we have 4 girls on our team, including me. 2 of the girls are doing design and two are on PR and Manufacturing team. this is out of about 37 kids. It's hard to get the guys to let you do something...but they're getting better at it.

[Eye-gor]

i am one of 5 girls on a team of 30-some-odd kids. last year there was only two girls and about as many boys as this year. i had to drag my two best friends here to ensure is wouldn't be the only one, and it turns out they like it. but i'm stil the only girl in the shop.

[Team2441]

Well we are a rookie team and we have four girls who participate actively everyday. At first we were kind of hesitant to get involved with the building because the guys would get snappy under stress but we have proven our worth. I was designated team captain for strategy and scouting. The other three captains are guys. We learn from our mentors and our fellow teammates every day and two of the girls are currently active in electrical and programming/building. Because there are more guys then girls we sometmes clash. It's fun though, in the end we realize we are an important part of the team and when any of us are missing they notice. Honestly, almost everyone on our team is basically learning from scratch, and only one guy on our team has experience with using tools. However when it comes to doing some tasks we girls have learned we have an easier time doing it then the guys.

[Mr MOE]

MOE 365 has 32 students and 11 of them are girls. The breakdown...

Mechanical - 6: Kirsten, Lan, Ashli, Cassandra, Erin, Shannon
Electrical - 2: Bethany, Ilana
Programming - 2: Laura, Mercedes
Web - 1: Rai (Webmaster)

I am pleased to say that we have very capable young women on our team. This was not always the case. As was stated previously here, it takes work to create an environment where women can thrive on en engineering project.

We have two women technical mentors - Lucie and Kirstin, and a number of non-technical female mentors. It is very important to have role models for the female students to go to if they are feeling underappreciated or under utilized in the robot build aspects of the team.

I am glad to hear the comments of the growth of the number of women on established and new FIRST teams. And hats off to the all-female teams. We know you are as competitive and capable as any team out there!

To all, good luck getting that bot in the box and in your upcoming competition season.

[waiakea2024]

Well, there are four of us...well four who actually do anything. Out of 10 or 12 people on our travel team. We do a lot of work though. put together we do pretty much everything. I personally, am pneumatics, mechanical, programmer, spirit, and a whole bunch of other things on the team. We are ounumberd, but we do let the guys know that we are there and we are there to work. Fortunatly we are not the typical "cheerleader" type girls. We are not afraid to get our hands dirty or to break a nail. we are "one of the guys" i guess you could say.

[ManicMechanic]

Well, then, let's make it an equal opportunity field and remove the glass ceiling! M. Krass said excellently in a post earlier this thread that as an unspoken rule, men are able to try and try again without ridicule, while women tend to be discouraged from trying again after failing.

I don't know what your situation is like, but from what I've seen, men seem to get their share of ridicule for failing. In fact, if anything, I feel that they have shown restraint in their criticism of me (probably because I'm a woman) when they have shown no mercy in ripping each other apart.

Let's all make sure that women have the same opportunities to try and try again, since no one likes being pushed down for not being perfect on the first attempt.

In an ideal world, everyone would be encouraged for effort, leading to success. While we should never give up on trying to reach this ideal, the reality is that I don't have control over my environment, and expecting it to change will only frustrate me when it doesn't happen. But, I do have control over how I respond to the environment. When pushed down, I can choose to leave, or I can choose to stay and try again. I can't force the people around me behave more fairly, but I can make myself more determined to succeed despite the circumstances, fair or not. The choice is mine: to become a bitter victim or a better person.

I'd like to share a story related to a girl on a team in the FLL region I oversee. Her first year, she, 2 other rookie guys, and a veteran guy who owned the team robot kit were on a team, and the coach was also a rookie. Not surprisingly, the veteran guy was the "dominant" team member, having the most say in the building and programming of the robot. The next year, the 2 new guys didn't return, but the girl decided that even in her limited experience, she liked robotics enough to buy her own RIS kit. She practiced during off-season, developed good building and programming skills, and the following year, SHE was the "dominant" team member.

Like this girl, I have found that our team's "dominant" members (head builder and programmer) of both genders typically hone their skills on their own time and their own dime -- they buy their own kits and spend hundreds of hours on robotics on their own. (Sometimes this purchase requires great sacrifice --I know one kid who saved for 2 years on a $2/week allowance, plus birthday money for a robot kit.) The students who come to our once-a-week meeting as their sole robotics experience have a tendency to end up on the sidelines. I have tried to rectify this by inviting kids to my home in pairs during off-season and in between regular team meetings so that they can have the whole robot kit to just themselves and one other person for 2-3 hours. This works for an FTC team of 7, but I don't know how this could work for a larger team with a more expensive robot, like FRC.

[SL8]

When it comes to getting things done and teamwork, I couldn't care less what gender you are. Anyone willing to work and learn has a place on our team. Currently, we have four girls on our team, which come to think of it, is about half our team.

[TheSuzy343]

Generally around 25% of the students on our team is consistently free of the Y chromosome, although right now the returning alumni are matched evenly on both sides. The girls on our team do pretty much everything the guys do, from the machine shop to the button maker to the broom. :)

[feliks_rosenber]

free of the Y chromosome

I simply could not have thought of funnier way of wording.

:)

[Karibou]

We've got 14 guys and 5 girls. Two of the girls work on imagery, but two of us work in the shop regularly. The last one works in the shop semi-regularly, but she still works :) . The two of us who work in the shop regularly are qualified on pretty much all of our machinery. We've got more qualifications than some of the guys. AND we're the only two students on pit crew for our team! xD I did some of the design work this year, and I got pretty involved with the website content, too.
At the beginning of the year I was like "Oh, I'm stuck in the shop for 3 hours doing work for the guys...They're gonna get all of the fun stuff and I'm going to be stuck fileing and sanding...," but I learned that it was REALLY far from the truth. I did do some of the easy work for a while, but that's because I was new and didn't know how to do the harder work. But I learned, and I'm milling and lathe-ing and having fun with everyone. And some of the guys are some of my best friends, too!

[usbcd36]

I simply could not have thought of funnier way of wording.

:)

In my sophomore year, my chemistry teacher said something similar.

"I know most of you are in this class because you have a Y chromosome…."

[Kittybot]

I'm one of four (technically 3 cause 1 of them does nothing but kiss her "boyfriend" who's on our team) girls on our team. One does a lot of the building, one does whatever our coach wants her to or follows her boyfriend Mike around helping him, one, like I said before, does nothing but distract us from work by wanting to talk or eat our snacks or kiss her "boyfriend", and I do what my coach says and make the Inventor assembly of our robot. 2 of the four of us are rookies, but I'm the only freshman. It kinda rocks being a tom boy since I'm a girl and have interests and a personality like a boy sometimes. Most of the team I'm good friends with, emphasis on most. Our coach is a different story all his own....he likes to pick on 2 of us A Lot. One because she's Mike's girl and is fun to mess with, and me cause I'm the shortest, lightest, and sometimes most energetic of the team. I think that wraps it all up! :D :D :D

[Emily2177]

I go to an all girls school so I'm on an all girls team. Last year was our rookie year and being an all girls team definitely got us a lot of news/media coverage. But, all but two of our mentors are men. It helps having them around to help with some of the heavy lifting and such, but for the most part all the girls are really active and involved. I must say I love being on an all girls team and its really fun to go to competition and see girls on other teams and hear what they do. Good luck to all of you girls out there for the rest of this season! And how many other all girls teams are out there in FIRST?

[Kev]

where r the hot chix?

[Engineer]

where r the hot chix?

That's a dangerous statement.

Don't pummel him too bad girls. Look at his sig, he rides the short bus.

[Éowyn]

where r the hot chix?

There's only one way to respond to this . . .

:rolleyes:

[geeknerd99]

where r the hot chix?

I'm dating one.:D Wait, that's partially why she's on the team... Guess that's one way to increase female recruitment.

[Danny McC]

where r the hot chix?

haha i really hope this guy is kidding. But hes not looking in the right places apparently.

[mikey1212]

hey. watch it. i think all the girls who have posted are pretty!

[Kersten]

hey. watch it. i think all the girls who have posted are pretty!
Being a girl on a robotics team, I cannot help but to question why it matters whether the girl is "hott" or not.. It's robotics, we are here to have fun and build beast robots....not worry about the "hottness" of the girls on the teams.... :cool:

[Kersten]

Being a girl on a robotics team, I cannot help but to question why it matters whether the girl is "hott" or not.. It's robotics, we are here to have fun and build beast robots....not worry about the "hottness" of the girls on the teams.... :cool:

Just in case other people wonder too....I'm not mad nor bothered by this topic

[SL8]

where r the hot chix?

Looks around, "where are the not so hot chicks? Oh, that's our school's cheerleaders.":yikes:

[Kersten]

Looks around, "where are the not so hot chicks? Oh, that's our school's cheerleaders.":yikes:

haha.....wow.

[Blue_Mist]

Looks around, "where are the not so hot chicks? Oh, that's our school's cheerleaders.":yikes:

Nah, that's our school's dance team. They had this one thing where they managed to incorporate pulling off their pants into their dance. And right after we presented our 2006 and 2007 robots, too. They looked about 766 times more stupid than if they had done the pants thing without our robots. Not that they didn't look stupid already.

[Kersten]

Nah, that's our school's dance team. They had this one thing where they managed to incorporate pulling off their pants into their dance. And right after we presented our 2006 and 2007 robots, too. They looked about 766 times more stupid than if they had done the pants thing without our robots. Not that they didn't look stupid already.

Dance team huh...yea a lot of dance teams look funny sometimes, but rule #1 is dont burst their bubble by telling them that...the majority of the school will not be to happy with you :cool:

[Brandon Holley]

Dance team huh...yea a lot of dance teams look funny sometimes, but rule #1 is dont burst their bubble by telling them that...the majority of the school will not be to happy with you :cool:

Just how you guys probably dont like being made fun of, i'm sure the dance team feels the same way. I'm sure they also work hard to do what they are passionate about. Just because you dont like them doesnt mean you have to make fun of them. Treat others like you want to be treated...

[SL8]

Just how you guys probably dont like being made fun of, i'm sure the dance team feels the same way. I'm sure they also work hard to do what they are passionate about. Just because you dont like them doesnt mean you have to make fun of them. Treat others like you want to be treated...

I did not make fun of anyone, I merely called them normal like everyone else.

[JaneYoung]

Guys, this quote is from the very first post of this thread and it is the purpose of this thread.
Since we are an all-girls team, we have lately been interested in the roles of girls on co-ed teams. Some members of my team were doing a survey of the number of girls on teams and their jobs at the Buckeye Regional. We were very disappointed to discover that on some teams, girls were given only the job of cheerleader, or publicist. Continuing that, just please give the number of girls on your team, along w/ the number of students on your team, and what the girls usually do. Thanks a lot!

Let's get back to that. :)
Jane

[SL8]

Guys, this quote is from the very first post of this thread and it is the purpose of this thread.


Let's get back to that. :)
Jane

Sí Sra.

[Rick TYler]

Here's a "girls on teams" anecdote for you. One of Exothermic Robotics' FTC teams has three girls and two boys on it. When the discussion of "who's going to drive the 'bot?" came up, one of the boys said, "I'll drive and <otherboy> will operate the game controls." One of the girls -- a friendly, short, peaceful girl -- said, "Nope. <Othergirl> is driving and I'm operating the arm." And that's the way it was. They were the top-seeded robot after qualifying and could easily have led their #1 alliance to winning the event if it weren't for a tragic mistake I won't go into.

Anyway. They were great drivers, went to the semifinals, and won the Innovate award.

[Kersten]

Just how you guys probably dont like being made fun of, i'm sure the dance team feels the same way. I'm sure they also work hard to do what they are passionate about. Just because you dont like them doesnt mean you have to make fun of them. Treat others like you want to be treated...

I'm not making fun of any dance team, I'm saying not to. I love my schools dance team, and just like sometimes our robotics team is bad at our school, the dance team can be. Everyone has their days, it's just not always nice to point it out.

[Blue_Mist]

I'm sorry. If it means anything, I regret that post. I posted it hastily and without thinking.

To go back to the original thread topic, today at Silicon Valley we had one girl programming (our one and only programmer :eek: ... assisted by awesome parent/teacher, but still, GO TAMARA! :)) and three girls doing mechanical improvements/fix-ups and scouting. Lots and lots of scouting. One of the parents was also scouting matches- who happened to be a team member's awesome mom. Yes, we value mothers and fathers equally. As for drive team, driver is male, copilot/box op (same programmer mentioned above) is female, "Robocoach" is male, coach is female student. So far. Things may switch around during the next two days of competition. Total today in the Pits we had two boys and three girls, studentwise. We'll have more tomorrow and Saturday, but meanwhile- anyone else have different male-female ratios during Build Season vs. Competition?

[jill399]

There's about 20 girls on our team of 40ish students. 8 of the girls do Media Marketing (with me), one does animation and the other 10 do manufacturing. The leader of the design team is a girl, our Product Integration Manager is a girl, and a lot of the girls who normally do Media stuff float around and end up helping out in the shop for a few days. Our operator and our robocoach are girls too.

But I agree with some of the other posts about it not mattering much WHO does a job as long as SOMEONE does. It's important to encourage integration but if the girls on your team would rather do PR stuff, then more power to them.

[SL8]

There's about 20 girls on our team of 40ish students. 8 of the girls do Media Marketing (with me), one does animation and the other 10 do manufacturing. The leader of the design team is a girl, our Product Integration Manager is a girl, and a lot of the girls who normally do Media stuff float around and end up helping out in the shop for a few days. Our operator and our robocoach are girls too.

But I agree with some of the other posts about it not mattering much WHO does a job as long as SOMEONE does. It's important to encourage integration but if the girls on your team would rather do PR stuff, then more power to them.

This is a good reiteration of the previous post ( nullifying the last 20 or so), and as before I have to agree.

[Flanamana]

Here's a "girls on teams" anecdote for you. One of Exothermic Robotics' FTC teams has three girls and two boys on it. When the discussion of "who's going to drive the 'bot?" came up, one of the boys said, "I'll drive and <otherboy> will operate the game controls." One of the girls -- a friendly, short, peaceful girl -- said, "Nope. <Othergirl> is driving and I'm operating the arm." And that's the way it was. They were the top-seeded robot after qualifying and could easily have led their #1 alliance to winning the event if it weren't for a tragic mistake I won't go into.

Anyway. They were great drivers, went to the semifinals, and won the Innovate award.

I love how the girl says "no" and that's how it is. This thread is supposed to be about equality but it's just as bad here, there were just more girls than guys in this situation.

[Rick TYler]

I love how the girl says "no" and that's how it is. This thread is supposed to be about equality but it's just as bad here, there were just more girls than guys in this situation.

For what it's worth, if the boys had said, "So, let's work out a way to pick our drivers" rather than "the boys will drive" things might have gone differently...

[647techangel]

Looks around, "where are the not so hot chicks? Oh, that's our school's cheerleaders.":yikes:
i bet u wouldnt say that to my friend whos a cheerleader for our school sl9:P :D

[SL8]

i bet u wouldnt say that to my friend whos a cheerleader for our school sl9:P :D

:ahh: You know what I mean.

[jdh]

We have 11 members on our team. 6 guys, 5 girls.

We have one girl as head of electrical, and the other girls all were in mechanical. I remember when they first joined--none of them would touch a drill. Now they are drilling like crazy.

At the regional, one girl was our coach and another our robo-coach.

I don't think it really matters if a girl does a job--some people just have a biased opinion about some things like that--the girls on my team can do their stuff better than I could, so that is that. If a girl has the capability over someone else, let them help.

[Kersten]

We have 11 members on our team. 6 guys, 5 girls.

We have one girl as head of electrical, and the other girls all were in mechanical. I remember when they first joined--none of them would touch a drill. Now they are drilling like crazy.

At the regional, one girl was our coach and another our robo-coach.

I don't think it really matters if a girl does a job--some people just have a biased opinion about some things like that--the girls on my team can do their stuff better than I could, so that is that. If a girl has the capability over someone else, let them help.

Well put!

[647techangel]

:ahh: You know what I mean.

no i dont,dont start 2 chicken out now:P

[Danny McC]

Remember to keep it to none-IM style conversation.

[i_am_samus]

On our team, there's only about... 4 or so girls, me being one of them. I'm team leader, and I've helped out with electrical, and mechanical, and wrote most of our hybrid's code.

One other girl helps with brainstorming, and has done a bit of code and mechanical. Otherwise, the other two don't really show up.

[Flanamana]

For what it's worth, if the boys had said, "So, let's work out a way to pick our drivers" rather than "the boys will drive" things might have gone differently...

That may be true but the girls didn't do that either. The whole "equality" thing isn't reached, the power is just shifted to the girls, so it's their way now.

[ErikSR71]

There are three girls on my team. One was on the eletrical sub-team, one was in charge of our chairmans presentation, and the other worked on PR and random jobs.

[hopkins]

We have seven girls and fourteen guys on our team. I am the captain and driver of our team so obviously gender didn't get in my way. I guess our team either doesn't discriminate or i didn't care if they did. I might have helped that one of our mentors is a woman engineer. Everyone has had to prove their worth whether girl or boy. Everyone is taught about any area that they want to learn (build, chairmans, electrical etc.) and then they usually find their niche. Our girls are working in every part of our team even though there are few of them.

I think if a girl wants to have a role on a team they just have to show that they want to learn and they have to be determined and dedicated. When i started out in FIRST in FLL, back in 4th grade, it was girls team against boys team in my school. We took a lot of teasing, ignored it, and ended up winning a design award, and they went home with nothing. That shut them up and gave us confidence. I think that girls need to realize that they need to stand their ground sometimes, its obviously going to be hard. No one is going to hand responsibility to you unless you prove yourself, girl or boy.

[kazzykaty]

We have 3 involved girls on the team. They may not build the robot or website but we do EVERYTHINg else. There wouldnt be a team without someone to fundraising, PR, communications, orginzation and such. We keep everyone on task and do all of the "chores" that no one else wants to do.

[Cappeh]

We have fifteen members on our team, three of which are female. One wrote our Chairman's Award this year, but hasn't been able to do much else due to her workload and some personal matters. I, myself, am heavily mechnically based, and usually found in the pits- our third female member is our rookie programmer that's done a fantastic job on our robot this year. <3

Having a coed team can be a wonderful thing, if you have the right students. We luckily have a group of guys that aren't sexist in the least, and let us girls jump right in wherever we'd like.

[THE DYNAMO]

We halve five active girls on our team of 15(10 dedicated 2 of which are girls
Emma Scott and and Julia Haerr are awesome machinists so im making them shirts that say "chicks dig lathes!"

[Brian Ha]

We have 7 girls on our team of 30. 3 of them are on electrical but really only 2 do work, 2 are in shop we dont do anything, 1 on website who does do stuff. We support girls on our team, but they like talking more haha

[O.S.S. King]

3/43 are girls on our team. One of them is on the animation team and the other two are on the build team. We have been trying to recruit more girls the past few years. Any suggestions??

[Karibou]

Wow, I forgot about this thread. It's been awhile.

3/43 are girls on our team. One of them is on the animation team and the other two are on the build team. We have been trying to recruit more girls the past few years. Any suggestions??
Treat them the same way you would treat guys on your team (alright, there are some things you may not want to talk about around them until you get to know them better, but you know what I mean). Try and include them in whatever is happening; encourage them to take part in team activities. Don't just leave them to fend for themselves. It can be really intimidating trying to fit in with guys sometimes, especially for freshmen.

[dag0620]

Maybe it's just me, but this whole distiction of guys and girls doesn't really happen over on 1071.

While we do have a 60/40 Male/Female ratio, it's still well intergrated. We have girls in all of our Major 3 departments, (Machinasits, Programming/Electrical, and Public Relations). To be honest there just like one of the team, and they generally are just as active as the guys.

[Nikki Haux]

We support girls on our team, but they like talking more haha

First off, I really can't tell if you're kidding or not.

Our team has got a lot more girls on the team in the last few years, but I have to agree they (yes, I'll say they), do like to talk a lot.
We have 12 girls of 25 kids on the team. It's about 50/50 girls who work and girls who talk. Some of us work in the shop, but some do work on business etc.

[Akash Rastogi]

We have girls on 3929 that I can honestly say have been more committed on the mechanical front than some of our guys. And they are freshmen!

We are very happy about this. :)

[Reanna]

Fembots are an all girls team as well! :)

[FrankJ]

Two of our Chairman's presenters are young women. Our drive team coach is a women. Next years head programmer might be a women, but she has keen competition if you look at that way. A number of the build team are women. As a group I cannot say if they are better or worse than the men on the team. Say what you want about groups, but at the end of the day you work with individuals.

[Taylor1023]

There are 29 students on our team. 11 are girls.

Most of the girls on the team do spirit, but there are a few exceptions. One of our two captains is a girl, works on chairmans and build, and is also pit captain (she's also going to college for mechanical engineering). One of our electricians is a girl and she's also our treasurer and secretary. Another girl on our team is co-captain and works on chairmans, fundraising, and PR. I'm a girl and I'm a programmer (the first and only girl programmer on the team).

If you look at all the girls on our team, only 3 do engineering-type work. That's a little disapointing when you notice that about every single guy on our team works on the robot at some point and there are 18 guys on the team. Our drive team hasn't had a girl on it since 2010 (and no girls tried out for driver this year). Our school offers a varsity letter in robotics and I'm sad to say that I'm probably the only girl on the team who will get a varsity letter this year.

Yes, I do understand that not everything is about the robot, but isn't our goal to get more students involved in engineering?

[gixxy]

I want to say we have 8-12 girls, about 45 total. There are 2-3 who are on Mechanical team.

Our Marketing and Literature team are nearly entirely girls. Without them on the team I don't know where we would be.

[tsaksa]

The team I mentor does have less than a 50% Female to Male ratio, but it is not so far off that mix that the the women that we do have seem at all out of place (at least to me). The women on our team also seem fairly well distributed in interests and capabilities. We have female students doing CAD/design, fabrication, electrical, programming, marketing, etc. They also do not just hold "entry level" positions, and represent a significant portion of our sub-team and organizational leads. They also seem comfortable making their opinions known at meetings and generally seem well respected for their work.

In fact, if it were not for this thread, I do not think I would have bothered to even consider any differences between the male and female team members. There are much greater differences between individual team members of either sex that anything I can see between either group when taken as a whole.

[johnmaguire2013]

I don't really see a distinction on our team. Members are free to choose what they want to work on and can even switch around throughout the season simply by seeking out jobs in other areas. Really, there's always work to be done and whoever wants to can, male or female.

[Team 3705]

In our build team, we have 2 dedicated girls working. We also have a marketing team with 4 girls and some guys. The lead for marketing and our controls is a girl.

[dictionaria13]

We have almost as many girls as guys. I do a lot of fine wiring (the mentors say I'm the best at it), one of our team co-captains/go-to people is a girl (we love you, Karina!!), our safety captain is a girl, plus various other all-purpose female team members who do whatever is needed at the time. I can't imagine being relegated to cheerleader just because I have a second X-chromosome.

[Shelbers2486]

13 of the 33 members of our team, 2486, are female. Along with this we have several technical and non-technical female mentors. Girls on our team have roles in every aspect, but more specifically, one girl is our secretary, one our teasurer, one our non-technical president, and me, our head builder. I would say that girls really have a role in everything on our team.

[Jon Stratis]

18/18 members on our team are female. 2/6 mentors with the team are female.

I guess coming from a small all girls school, that first number isn't all that surprising :p

[ClearlyClare]

4 girls out of 28 (and I'm one if them!)

This is our third year and I was originally the only girl on the team. I am the marketing lead, one does a lot of essay work and other random PR. Another works half with me and half with the robot and the last girl this year is in charge of ALL the electronics. She's co-captain and will most likely be captain next year.

(And, honestly, if I had signed up to be captain this year, I believe I would've gotten it, but I already do too many things haha)

GO GIRLS!!! :)

[torihoelscher]

I am the President of my team. I also was Historian for one year, Software Sub Team lead for 2 years. I am also one of the chairmans presenters. We have 17 girls on my team but only 12 go to competitions.

Being on a Co-ed team is great. :)

My freshman year I was part of the mechanical subteam, software subteam, and was a mascot for Spirit.

Dont worry :) the world is changing!

[Rachel Baker]

I am one of the 4 girls on our small-but-mighty team of ten. Our entire team has to be very involved with the robot since we have so few members, and that includes all of the girls.

One female member of the team is our strategist and a very prominent team leader. Another girl is co-pit boss, and another is our inbounder. I am our driver.

We all took an active part in building the robot, scouting, talking to other teams and judges, and being on the drive team.

The girl members on our team are just as much as a part of the team as the male members. We all have our roles, and they don't depend on our gender. :D

[Jujubee]

Out of about 25 kids on our team, 3 of them are girls. I personally am the oldest and I've been in mechanical all my FIRST life, and this year I'm the coach for drive team. The two other girls just joined this year, one being a sophomore and the other is a freshman. They aren't really into anything other than web as of lately, and they kind of stick together. What I think is really important to know about girls on the teams is that they tend to either be reallly dedicated (5-6 days a week) or casually interested. I really don't think that it has to do with girls being steered away from more hands-on things, but their interests usually lie elsewhere. I think that as much as I enjoy mechanical I just don't have a natural knack for it like the guys do, however I have experiences that say that girls are much more moldable and flexible than the stubborn boys!

[theawesome1730]

Out of about 45 kids on our team, 10 of them are girls. 4 of them are communications/chairman's/website only. One does CAD and the other are assembly and machining

[VexisDarksteele]

In total, our team of 35 members has 5 girls, including myself. Although, those numbers are strictly based on the members we have registered in STIMS — during the build weeks, we generally have about 12 participating members; 2-3 active girls. We also have one woman as a mentor, and she does electrical.
One of our attending girls tends to be mainly a promotional type. I'm the only active veteran girl; the other two are first-year members. I basically do everything and anything on the team. I've done CAD before, I've done fabrication, I've been the mascot, I've done website management, I've done fundraising and event coordination, I'm currently on the Chairman's team and student government. I prefer doing tasks that are mechanical or leadership based. Our other active girl is kinda like my understudy — she follows me around everywhere and likes to learn things from me. Once I graduate next year, I have no doubts that she'll fill my place. :)

[giantmidget31]

We have about 12 people on our team (It's hard to say who's actually on it because many members have irregular attendance patterns). There are 4 girls.
-a sophomore (me) who does electrical and is the coach on the drive team
-a sophomore who is the head of scouting
-a senior who is the head of design (t-shirts, banners, etc.)
-a freshman who is just getting started and has no official role yet, but helps out with build

Last year, we had a female captain, this year our captain is male.

[Aroki]

Team 1787 has no girls on it and if I am not mistaken, has never had girls on it.

[torihoelscher]

Team 1787 has no girls on it and if I am not mistaken, has never had girls on it.

I think I am going to join your team. Why arent there any girls?

[gracekrueger444]

GIRLS RULE::ouch::

[Gilgamesh]

My freshman year there were 5/20 girls on the team, that ratio has consistently gone down to 2-5/30 the past five years. This is not due to trying on the part of the team leadership to have a co-ed team. When we do get more girls than that it tends to be that they do just want to come 'cheerlead' or take a trip into Boston.

[Herbblood]

WE have gone from 2-3 girls to now 8, in everywhere on the team, we are in electrical, fab, mechanical, media, safety, and in programming(me!).

[Chris is me]

My freshman year there were 5/20 girls on the team, that ratio has consistently gone down to 2-5/30 the past five years. This is not due to trying on the part of the team leadership to have a co-ed team. When we do get more girls than that it tends to be that they do just want to come 'cheerlead' or take a trip into Boston.

Perhaps it's attitudes like this that have led to fewer girls being comfortable joining your team?

[MysterE]

Our team strives to have multiple forms of diversity. I think we focus a lot on the girl/guy ratio but also important is the ratio of minority groups to majority groups and the like.

But on this particular topic - we currently have 30 members. 15 are girls. While a number of them have chosen roles that seem to be common among teams (media, Chairman's presenters, and overall leadership), our Lead Programmer in training is a girl, our Drive Coach is a girl, and a number of our builders are girls.

[AtarashiiSekai]

On our team, out of 12 total members, we have maybe 5 girls who are active. Many of them are put on fundraising duties, but 2-3 have a very active role in our bot, one of them being the team captain and the others are our drivers.

I think a lot of girls are interested and want to help and be part of the robots, but do not have any self-motivation or direction to find something on their own. It could be because of intimidation, I'm not exactly sure, but I have noticed this on my team since I joined.

[Miss157]

On our team we have about six girls. One is the person who CADded most of our robot, another designed our T-shirt, and I'm Safety Captain and I write submissions for the awards.

It's a little disheartening to hear people in this thread be so dismissive to be honest. "Just do PR"? PR and promotional material is part of what makes FIRST to begin with. Spreading the message of FIRST, organizing outreach, getting your team name and FIRST out there is INCREDIBLY important.

A huge part of FIRST is that "It's about more than just the robot".

[dubiousSwain]

On our team we have about six girls. One is the person who CADded most of our robot, another designed our T-shirt, and I'm Safety Captain and I write submissions for the awards.

It's a little disheartening to hear people in this thread be so dismissive to be honest. "Just do PR"? PR and promotional material is part of what makes FIRST to begin with. Spreading the message of FIRST, organizing outreach, getting your team name and FIRST out there is INCREDIBLY important.

A huge part of FIRST is that "It's about more than just the robot".

I agree. I am a guy and recently I have drifted towards more photography and videography. I like to think that my job helps our team just as much as the builders. Just because girls aren't making the robot doesn't mean they aren't an important part of the team.

[Courtneyc303]

Our team has 3 girls on the team. One of us is the team captain and one is our public relations leader. Our team captain is also in charge of the business side of the team. We are also the ones who submit the awards. We find this side of the team interesting, we like working in this area. However 2 of us do participate in the shop whenever time allows outside of PR/Business.

[Abby341]

A large part of our team is female, close to 30 of our 60 team members are girls. I personally do a lot of communications, media, scouting and awards work. About half of our build team is female. One of our two head coaches is a girl. I am one of the 3 female captains and there are 5 of us. OUr operator is a girl, and half of our pit crew are girls. My team has a history of having a lot of girls on our team, I think our mentors and coaches make a point of it when accepting new members. Our media and communications team is mostly girls however. I believe that may have to do with the fact that our only female coach and mentor is head of that area and girls are often more comfortable working with other girls, but thats just my opinion. Our scouting team is super mixed as well, about half and half. I'm really proud to be apart of a team where we never really think about someones position on the team and their gender relate. A lot of the girls on the have graduated from team have gone onto be very successful, working for companies like Nasa, so that also helps eliminate any stereotypes or opinions people may have on the team about a girls ability.

[iffab10]

Since we are an all-girls team, we have lately been interested in the roles of girls on co-ed teams. Some members of my team were doing a survey of the number of girls on teams and their jobs at the Buckeye Regional. We were very disappointed to discover that on some teams, girls were given only the job of cheerleader, or publicist. Continuing that, just please give the number of girls on your team, along w/ the number of students on your team, and what the girls usually do. Thanks a lot!

Team 1306 has 9 girls on a team of 28. The girls on our team have all kinds of leadership positions. I'm a girl who has been on my team for 3 years and I have personally seen our environment shift a lot when it comes to girls and their roles participating in robotics. I am the Senior Co-President on the team this year. Our head of business, outreach, video and marketing are also girls. However, we also have a lot of girls that are very involved with building the robot. Our safety captain is a girl and a new member on our drive team is a girl. The girls do tend to do more of marketing and imagery but I think that's just some girls preference. My team its really flexible, when it comes to students doing what they would like to do, but when we need someone to fill those roles girls usually volunteer or are placed in those positions.

[GeeTwo]

From the get-go, team 3946 has had at least 30% girls. When Gixxy (my son and named as team founder in our 2012 video) did recruiting in summer 2011, he reached out equally to boys and girls. Jesse (our head coach since August 2011) has actively recruited girls, minorities, and "others you wouldn't expect on a robotics team", including jocks, cheerleaders, and even stoners and thugs from his classes. When I think of all the help that these "unusual" recruits have given the team, it gives me pause. When I realize what we have done for them, and what they will likely do for society, it makes me realize (more than anything Dean can say) that FIRST mentorship is a calling, not a hobby.

There's no "glass ceiling" on our team. We had four seniors on the team this year, all guys. None of them was team captain. Our team captain, and primary pit boss, was a junior girl. Who was also our Dean's list nominee. Who also transitioned from a "wasted life" niche into a "productive life" track in the last three years. The winner of our leadership award was another female junior. And finally, the most outrageous technical accomplishment of the year was accomplished by a female underclasswoman. Our mechanical lead mentor declared that pulling the wheels to install sensors in the KoP chassis as I had designed was too difficult. I decided that it was worth a try. Marybeth and I pulled one wheel, installed the sensors, and put it back. I left it to her to take care of the other side. She called me back ONLY for the fine adjustments, and otherwise undertook an upgrade that one of our top mentors considered "too hard for the team to handle" on her own. We also had girls heading up most of our business functions, getting spirit awards and honorable mentions, and posting some serious fundrasing numbers. As long as I have been involved with the team, there have been girls i trusted to "get the job done".

[kristinweiss]

My *former* team is about a quarter girls and for the most part they all gravitate towards website design, marketing, and outreach. That being said, when students join the team they are allowed to work on whatever they want to. Personally, having a strong personality and a mom in robotics, I gravitated very much towards the robot design and build and was on the drive team every year during my time on the team. I have spent my time on the team and as an alumni pushing some of the other girls to get more involved in the robot. I have noticed that a lot of the girls are intimidated at first because the guys who mainly build the robot are so close and can come off as somewhat cliquy, but once I break the barrier and help them get more involved in the robot, they don't want to do anything else. There are two main things that I have noticed that seem to really work to get girls more involved in the robot aspects of the team. The first one is letting them drive the robot. Literally every girl on the team I have ever offered to let drive the robot has hesitated because they were afraid they were going to mess something up, but as soon as they were given the push to take control and drive, it became very hard to take the controls away from them because they loved it so much. I think that letting girls drive the robot has really helped the girls on our team become more involved with the robot design and build because they are working so closely with the robot during competitions and become closer friends with the other robot designers and builders. The other thing that I have found that gets girls more involved in the robotic aspects is to have a female mentor or role model on the team. I grew up with a mom in robotics, so I have always had someone to look up to and was never afraid to take control or ask to try things. That being said, on a mainly male team with even fewer females working on the robot, girls tend to gravitate towards other girls, because let's face it, we are girls and we like to stick together. While I was on the team, I was able to get the number of girls working on the robot to increase simply because I was a girl and was able to look out for them and give them the support they needed. As soon as I graduated I was very disappointed to see that there were no girls working on the robot. When I came back and started to become more involved in the team as an alumni and mentor, I was able to get at least one girl involved who ended up being a rockstar driver at our regional competition and at worlds, and I hope that this year I can get even more girls involved.

So long story short, I think that girls are more inclined to do what they already know which tends to be more marketing and PR, and girls like to work with other girls. In order to get girls into more technical positions, they need other girls to work with and someone to help push them to try new things.

[meow-its-sarah]

I'm the only girl on a currently 8 member team. For my freshman and sophomore years, I worked as just scouting lead and tried to participate in robot-building, but didn't do much because of other team issues. Last year, I was scouting lead again, but also worked heavily with the electrical and programming sub-teams and I loved being able to know what was actually going on with the robot.

This year I applied and was accepted to be business lead, even though robot-building is more of my passion, simply because the boys won't do it themselves and someone has to take responsibility for, you know, sponsorship, since the team does *GASP* need money to function.

I'm focusing on business off-season, so I can continue to work with the electrical and programming teams because I refuse to give up working on the robot after waiting years to be able to do so. I'm also hoping to be teaching the guys how to work with and keep sponsors or get some of our school's DECA/ marketing students involved, so the robot people (aka me) don't have to give up building the robot to market.

Here's to hoping I'll still get to work on the robot this season. :rolleyes:

[Clem1640]

We generally have 30-50% girls on our team. We've been fortunate in attracting some very driven and enthusiastic girls. Student leadership is merit-based and the team has always had girls and women in key leadership positions. Some examples:

2 of our current drive team members are girls

1 of our 2 current co-captains is a girl

Our current scouting lead is a girl

For 4 years (ending 2014), our pit captain and lead mechanical student was a girl.

For 4 years (ending 2014), our drive team coach was a young woman

Our 2015 robot chassis (and many earlier ones) was welded by a girl

One of our 3 current lead programmers is a girl

Having girls and women in leadership positions on the team has, I think, made it easier for girls coming on to the team to step into leading positions themselves.

It has also helped make us a better team; it's hard to get the best person possible to perform a job if you effectively eliminate half the population (why would you do this?).

[nate12345678]

We have approximately a dozen girls on a 63 person team. the girls are as equally involved as the boys, with about 4 who do nothing, 1 on cad, and the rest are on mechanical/electrical. very reflective of the boys, except there were no girls on programming.

[Qbot2640]

2014 was the first year we were not majority-female. This year, our President, Programming Captain, CFO, and Buyer are all female, and they are also some of our best builders.

Don't tell my son this, but if I had to choose one or the other - I'd take a team full of young women before a team full of young men!

[shlynfrhm]

Our team has been all guys for about 6 years, until last year, when both I and one of my best friends joined. Then, this year we added another female member.

We have about 18 members on our team, 3 of which are girls. This is a record number, but the team will unfortunately be reverting back to all male next year, when we all graduate. I'm the Lead Programmer and one of the girls is an assisting fabricator, but my best friend single-handedly runs the fundraising effort for our team. Often times the girls on are team are expected to handle all the paperwork/organization details, even if w'ere juggling our own projects. But I know that on other teams, the demographics are much different:P

[GeeTwo]

But I know that on other teams, the demographics are much different:P

This seems to be the biggest constant across teams - each one is different. In our first year (2012, Rebound Rumble), it seemed like we were the only team at Bayou that was anywhere close to 50/50. We had to have an extended talk on "watching out for your sisters" with the males on our team. Three years later, it seems like most teams are sending a 1:2 or better ratio of girls - we have the same talk, but it isn't quite as immediate. I did notice (as we were alliance partners at Bayou this year) that Wildcat was mostly male. Is there a culture there that tends to exclude/shun/shy girls away from the team? For the record, I grew up closer to Destrehan than to Slidell (in Avondale, just over the Jefferson Parish line, but on the West Bank). If there's some way that we (meaning 3946 or all of CD) can enable broader inspiration, please let us know!

[phurley67]

Not sure of our count (we are a pretty large team and our numbers are somewhat fluid); however, the majority of members are male. That said our president, vice-president and programming lead (my daughter --> go Allie) this year are all girls. Last year our president and co-pilot were also girls. We have girls working in most if not all of our sub-groups.

[Celia]

Two years ago, we had a majority of female members (about 12 of 20). The past season, 11 of 25 were female, which is close enough to 50/50. However, more young women have assumed leadership roles on our team. The team captain (me), electrical lead, programming lead, business lead, and scouting lead were all female. This is five young women in leadership roles compared to two young men (CAD and build) on our team. In addition to this, our drive team this past season consisted of a female driver (also me) and operator (said programming lead) with a male human player.

I love how involved and driven our girls are, and I think it is encouraging for new members to see girls in respected positions, no matter the field. Our electrical lead was even mistaken for a mentor during inspection at competition this year by a mentor of a Hall of Fame team.

[raystubbs]

4 girls of an average of about 15 members. Girls mostly do the paperwork and booth decorations, but those are the jobs they choose. We have been trying to get the girls to do some building or programming, but they don't seem to be interested at all.

[alextried]

Our team is roughly 50% girls (about 60 members). We're involved in pretty much everything on this team. We have had/still have female captains, pit crew members, safety captains, scout leads and more at competitions. During build season, we probably have the least amount of girls in PR, and most are in engineering and programming. My team has a really good balance with kids right now.

[garyk]

In my 11 years as an FRC mentor, I've been associated with three teams that have had young women as captains - 972, 2643, 3256.

[planetbrilliant]

We have roughly 4 girls on our team (of roughly 25 ish kids) and we're aiming to fix this i promise (we have a significant number of freshman hopefully joining our team)
In the past we haven't been that great regarding female team members, most of us were kind of pushed toward pr and spirit and marketing even if we wanted to work on the programming or robot itself. It didn't help that for our first two years a group of 3 people did most of the work on the robot and didn't like or want other people trying to work on it.
We had some issues.
This year however, the member(s) encouraging this kind of behavior have graduated. Our team captain this year is going to be a girl who has been with us since the start and she's ensuring that everyone, especially the members who have been pushed toward the background, get to do what they've wanted to do all along.

[SoulianPride]

We are roughly 58% (out of about 30) girls at this time with most of our girls involved with working on mechanical, CAD, or electrical. Everyone is required to work on the robot, though a few of our girls prefer to keep their work there to a minimum and work on business which we see as completely since since it's their choice.

[cjl2625]

Hmm... From my memory, this past year, we had 2 female seniors, no female juniors, no female sophomores, and about 4 female freshmen.
They aren't really involved directly with the robot, more so with scouting and whatnot.
Our team has around 50 members total.