Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

There is an interesting discussion going on in the I Am Jane Cosmetics thread about a specific instance, early in the process, of attracting females to STEM hobbies and careers. There are also many other threads throughout the years discussing the issues involved in being a female interfacing in what is perceived to be a male-dominated field.
What can we do to, as Dean referenced several times at CMP, become more inclusive? What can we do to become more attractive to females? Should we target specific ages?
By virtue of my own gender, I do not feel comfortable making suggestions here. I'd like to know what you, the Chief Delphi community, and specifically the female denizens, find appealing about the program and how to make this feel safe, comfortable, and attractive to all - especially women.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

There are two great places to start, the executive summary here: http://kellrobotics.org/files/pdf/wp/EWE.pdf

And from the National Academy of Engineering: http://kellrobotics.org/files/pdf/wp...nversation.pdf

But in a nutshell here is a super fast summary answer:

“Why are academically prepared girls not considering or enrolling in engineering degree programs?”

We know the issue is not one of ability or preparation. We know that girls are taking high school science and math courses at approximately the same rate as boys. The problem is one of perception.

Girls and the people who influence them—teachers, school counselors, parents, peers, and the media—do not understand what a career in engineering looks like and therefore don’t consider it as a career option.

High school girls believe engineering is for people who love both math and science. They do not have an understanding of what engineering is. They do not show an interest in the field nor do they think it is “for them.” The common understanding among all audiences is that engineering is perceived to be a man’s profession and there is little to no encouragement for girls to consider engineering.

Professional interests for high school girls hinge upon relevance. Relevance incorporates that a job is rewarding, and it suggests that the profession is for someone “like me.” Girls want their job to be enjoyable, have a good working environment, make a difference, offer a good salary, and be flexible.

Girls and their career influencers need to be educated in what an engineer really does and how they live their lives. When a high school girl asks “what does an engineer do” the answer should not be the typical task oriented answer suitable for investment bankers and personnel recruiters. It should be an example of a real person living their daily life, with an accent on why this job is relevant to them and to the larger community.

In our Chairman's video from 1:20 to 1:23 we try to point out the 'relevance' issue. So far the way we are addressing the 'daily life' issue is by job shadows, networking, etc.

This isn't a complete answer but it is a pretty good start and it works for us. We currently have 20 girls and 16 boys on the team and that has been a consistent ratio for years. A more complete answers is forthcoming but this is all I could collect in 2 minutes.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

Having worked with an all-girls team for the past 8 years, I've had a chance to see some of this in action.

First off, I've heard anecdotally from a teacher involved in FLL that the problem isn't attracting young girls - it's keeping them. From what she's seen, you can get girls involved in FLL very easily, and have large numbers of them. But then they move from elementary to middle school, and lose their connection with the team. They don't have anything at the middle school level to support their interest (at least locally, FLL has primarily been elementary school, and FTC hasn't really gotten big here yet) and so they move on... by the time they get to high school, peer pressure and other interests prevent them from joining an FRC team. As a community, we need to work on capturing students young, and ensure they have a clear path of involvement all the way through to college. Get them into an FLL program, graduate them from there straight to an FTC program (along with all their friends who were in FLL with them), and from FTC to FRC. Don't let there be a gap of a year or two between programs, because that's when you'll lose them.

From my team's experience, sometimes you just need a critical mass of girls. It can be extremely intimidating to be a female walking into a male-dominated team. Last fall my team went to another school in the area and did a promotional demo along side an experienced team from that school. After the demo, the team had a surprisingly large number of girls sign up - the girls just needed to see that they could be successful. They needed to see that girls could be included right alongside the guys, and be just as successful.

As guys in this male-dominated field, we need to be truly inclusive. We need to treat everyone the same, promote those females involved, and ensure we don't leave anyone behind. Girls and boys grow up in very different worlds. I got experience with machines and tools early as part of just being a boy - I build birdhouses and toolboxes in cub scouts, I helped my dad replace light fixtures and run cable around the house, and had all sorts of opportunities to do such "manly stuff". The girls we get in our program don't have those opportunities. We have to teach them how to use a drill and a saw and which way to turn a screw driver.

I think some (many?) coed teams forget this vast difference in backgrounds (and to be clear, the difference can be between anyone, not just male/female... it's just the gender gap that often is most apparent). The boys step in and use their prior experience to push forward and try new things, while the girls get intimidated because they just don't know as much right from the start. We need to make sure we have orientation and training for everyone on the team that starts right from the basics and works its way up. As mentors, we need to constantly push forward those students (regardless of gender) who tend to sit quietly in the back of the room. The biggest success we can have is when a parent comes to us and tells us we truly changed their kids life (for the better), and not just by providing a team, but by the direct interaction we had with that kid.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

Blue Cheese has had some success increasing the number of young ladies into our program. Our strategy is simple: have the girls on the team lead recruitment of other girls. Girls what to hear about what happens on your team from their peers. They can tell a story about girls in STEM better than any boy can.

Have them talk to girls in their classes. Have them lead your recruitment activities. Have young ladies drive the robot in public and encourage girls to drive as well. Once you get them hooked, they become some of your best students.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

The longer I'm here, the more I feel that the bigger problem is not about attracting them, it's about keeping them there.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

Over the years I have seen quite a few efforts and plans, by FIRST teams and in other areas, to include more females in STEM. I will say that the majority of them fail to address the main underlying reason why we want more girls in STEM, that is, they can bring talent and intelligence to the table.

Going after females because we "want diversity" or "need a female influence" immediately isolates girls and pigeon holes them as "bringers of diversity". I have seen countless girls scared away because they immediately hear the message "we need more girls" instead of "we need more passionate individuals". Giving them the former message immediately lets them know that they will personally be a point of focus, a loner in a sea of boys.

My point is, don't immediately refer to students by their gender. Refer to them by their mind. Instead of preaching about being inclusive, just be inclusive. Don't teach students that we need a balance of minorities, teach them that we need a balance of skills. Some girls will take the message "we need more of your gender" well and it will motivate them to join, but I would guess that the majority would be put-off by that.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

I agree the biggest problem is keeping them. 50% of our travel squad was girls, and about 40% of the overall team, so we feel somewhat successful.

However, the girls we keep generally have a strong personality--no shrinking violets! We have lots of boys who are shy, but I can only think of 1 or 2 girls who fit that description.

I think the issue might be that teenage boys generally don't have a problem asserting themselves in a situation and grabbing all of the time and resources. (The cover story for the latest Atlantic Monthly discusses this type of issue.) We noticed this and tried to control how the boys jumped in without waiting for others to participate. This was a particular issue among our programmers. Teen girls tend to be more concerned about the social situation and to be more deferential to others. Shy boys are more willing to tolerate overly assertive boys (remember that often they are friends) while shy girls may find it too intimidating.

We are going to focus more on allowing more space and time for the girls to get comfortable. It also will be good for the boys to learn better social skills in all settings.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

This. For the longest time I was one of those kids who sat quietly to the side until someone told me to do something, and then once that job was done I would retreat again. Thankfully, one of our mentors saw something in me and kind of took me under his wing. He didn't let me sit idly by anytime. I remember my junior year at our regional I was sitting in the stands sort of half-sleeping/half-scouting and he came up and was like "Where have you been? Why aren't you in the pit? We need you in the pit!" and I was kind of like "Oh, okay then let's go." and that was that. I don't know that I actually was needed in the pit, but he just wanted to get me out of the stands and doing something more productive (not that scouting isn't productive–I just wasn't doing a very good job). Thanks to him, I went from being practically invisible my freshman year to being driver and a build team leader/honorary captain my senior year.

We have to make sure that everyone (again, regardless of gender) feels welcomed and valued, because that's what will make them want to stay.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

I'm a woman in an aggressively all-male field (surgery) and the key for me was mentors. They were all men, but starting with my dad, through my calculus teacher in high school, through to my surgical preceptors, they were my support and sounding board. I have watched our male programming mentor walk one girl after another through programming autonomous, and it is inspiring to watch their confidence grow. Many ultimately choose to work on other aspects of the team, but he is often their gateway. He has a friendly, non-judgemental manner, and they aren't afraid of making a mistake or asking "dumb" questions.

Teen girls tend to be more concerned about the social situation and to be more deferential to others.

This is key. Girls may require a little pushing to speak up and take charge. Once they do, their comfort level with the team will increase exponentially. I remember sitting at rounds in the ICU while the attending physician questioned the team about a patient's condition. I knew all the answers but would whisper them to a resident who I was comfortable with. He finally told me to shout 'em out myself, and I figured out that I wasn't going to die from speaking in public, and that I actually did know something.

Don't teach students that we need a balance of minorities, teach them that we need a balance of skills.

Absolutely. I earned my education and my career - it wasn't given to me because "they needed a woman for that job". No one wants to have their efforts cheapened by that attitude.

And - as you get more girls moving forward into STEM careers, more will follow. It has happened in my field, as incoming medical students see more females in surgical specialities.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

The question we're asking should not be, "How do we attract girls to FIRST?" It should be, "What did we do to drive them away?"

There is very little difference among small children with respect to performance in STEM-related subjects and interest in STEM-related topics. As they grow older, they internalize expectations set in our culture for how they should behave and what they should value. At this stage, they are driven away from interest in STEM. This is the problem we need to address; it's the root cause of the issue.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

We have hard time inspiring girls into FRC. They are smart do good in science and maths, some are better than average males students. For some reason not many are willing event to try...

I don't believe anyone is trying to drive them away...from any team.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

Let's bring up what might be a sore subject.

A number of studies http://advances.asee.org/wp-content/...ssue02-p11.pdf show through qualitative survey and observation that girls demonstrate more consistently positive attitudes toward science and technology when applications demonstrate the social value of the field - the fight against disease, geriatric care, managing natural disasters, or modifying the food we eat. The reasoning is consistently used to discuss the rising numbers of women in biology, environmental science, and even biomedical engineering as opposed to the stagnantly low numbers in physics, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, etc. More recently, we are seeing computer science join the former category.

The example sees girls demonstrate more confidence and more positive attitudes than boys and even draws upon a handful of quantitative measures through which a sample of girls outperform boys.

The examples I chose might sound familiar - these are recent FLL challenges. We lose most girls after FLL. Coincidentally, our structure also changes dramatically in the move from FLL to FTC/FRC, from one in which research into and presentation of "real-world problems" take center-stage alongside the robot, to one in which we pull our hair out over robot performance. (Yes, I know the actual chronology of the programs' creation)

Could this shift be a contributing factor for our struggle keeping girls on our teams? Can we isolate the issue as the prominence of the robot game or the lack of "social change-motivated projects"?

There are a handful of teams that I know have used engineering to address social change and to build beneficial products for their communities in the off-season. I would love to hear from representatives from these teams (842 and the DREAM Act Campaign, 2158 and the knee brace project, 1712 and the mobile inspiration project). Do you have more success keeping the women on your team over teams that place more focus on robot iteration and the robot game?

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

I don't quiet see why this is a sore point ? Social relevance is a huge positive factor, well supported by studies. Trying to get the public to under stand the relevance to engineering is a big factor in recruitment and retention of students, especially girls.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

I think FRC has the right focus on using "team sports" as the proper framework to attract the broader audience. FLL is more like a "game"; a "sport" generates more enthusiasm, and FRC is intended to use that enthusiasm to generate more STEM students.

Participation in girls sports has grown dramatically since the 1970s, to where they are almost equal with boys. One of the most interesting aspects is that girls participation is highest in two sports where the boys and girls train together in the same season track & field and cross country. (Almost all other sports have distinct girls and boys seasons.) So these sports show that girls can be attracted in droves to highly competitive activities.

I think the problem is not the structure of the organization but rather a tendency for who is on these teams now and how that affects the culture of the teams. Making the culture comfortable for girls will make them more happy to join.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

In the world of medicine, girls are starting to dominate. Over half of a medical class nowadays are girls. When I went to medical school 30 years ago there is only 25 girls in a class of 150.
However in my girl's high school robotics club there is only one girl, my daughter. That's one of the main reason why I become heavily involved with the club.
Going to the championship in St. Louis has really inspired my daughter. I hope more girls have that opportunity.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

One thing I want to point out is that just saying "omg don't just encourage girls to join encourage EVERYONE to join!" is a relatively fair argument for encouraging shy students to stand up and become leaders, but it doesn't help girls specifically at all. Really, most actions that aren't specifically aimed at helping girls join/stay with FIRST is going to lead to a decline. Because gender-neutral recruitment/encouragement really draws in mostly boys, as STEM is still a male-dominated field, and is seen as a "manly" thing. To encourage girls to become leaders in STEM you really have to bring them in specifically.

Now Monochron makes a very good point; recruiting girls because you need diversity or statistics or whatever is worthless. It tells them "we want you only to be able to say we have you, we don't actually care what you gain out of this." Which is very bad, obviously. But at the same time, just gathering people to FIRST teams yields mostly guys in most cases. A masculine-associated activity is not going to bring many women unless you destroy the stigma that building is for men. There is no blanket solution for bringing girls into FIRST because girls are vastly different people and aren't some "species" to "understand." The simple answer is to encourage girls as individuals, and don't make them join because they're female and you need females (for your purposes), but for them to challenge themselves, get benefits that men have that they might not have before, and so they can get the full advantage afforded to them (for THEIR purposes). Even if you just have each girl on your team bring one or two of their friends onto the team next year, this can have a positive effect because these girls will be joining the team already knowing they have a friend or two, and won't be completely alone.

TL;DR: Make girls understand that this is an incredible opportunity. Don't recruit them because they're female, recruit them because everybody deserves to be a part of FIRST.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

This is fascinating! And makes sense! It would make the model for FLL perfect for attracting girls into STEM and FRC not as attractive for retaining them. Having this information could change the way we recruit young women. It never would have crossed my mind to highlight the altruistic aspects of FIRST as a hook and make the team support. technology introduction and even the enticement of scholarships a secondary benefit!

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

After being on a co-ed FIRST robotics team for 3 years I can definitely attest to the fact that it is a challenge to get girls interested in FIRST. My second year on my team I was the only girl, mentors included. Something unique to my situation though is that I never have felt alone or isolated on my team because of my gender. This year was my first year being a captain on the team and I have never felt disrespected or treated as less because of my gender. I wear makeup on a daily basis and I always have my nails painted and for the most part I see myself as a typical girl who is just really passionate about STEM and FIRST. I'm not really sure what to do to get more girls involved except to just continue to be accepting. I have always seen the Robettes (2177) as the coolest team at our regional competition because it excites me to see girls excel in this male dominated community. That being said most of the teams I have seen (at least in Minnesota) have a handful of girls on their team. I think the best way to get girls involved is to show them that FIRST isn’t only for boys and when they join a FIRST team not to treat them any different.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

thegnat05 - If you want some help recruiting more females to your program, please let our team know. We've brought our robot and team to other schools to do demo's with that goal specifically in mind, and I know it's had success in recruiting more female students for other local area teams. I'm sure our captains would jump at the chance to help out!

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

I see what you mean with this point, but I would argue that gender neutral recruiting can be just as effective as long as it is done right. Case in point, at one of our recent open houses I made a point to speak with most every girl who came by and give them more personal attention than the average boy. I asked them all what they are interested in, what they like to do, and what other teams or activities they participate in. Basically, I made the conversation much more personal with them and was able to pick out a few of their interests and say "Oh, we really need people interested in <blank> on our team" and list a couple examples of tasks/projects in that area. My goal was to make them feel necessary and needed and that their interests are incredibly valuable to us; that we need their passion.

This is my general approach with boys as well, but I make a more concerted effort with girls because I know of the societal prejudice pushing them away.

Well said, I think we agree :)

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

Interesting. I could support this approach, but this is the exact definition of non-gender-neutral recruiting to me (since the techniques vary by gender, regardless of whether it's articulated to them as such). I suspect from his post that this is Andrew's definition as well.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

That would be so cool. Our team currently has 7 females (counting me) and ever since we had you on our final alliance in 2013 at regionals I have been talking your team up at our school. The other FRC team in our disrtict (4778) also really looks up to your team. I think it would be really cool for our school and our team to hear what you guys have to say. I will have our head mentor send you an email!

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

Definitely. Ignoring the disparity and prejudices against females in STEM activities is going to exclude people (those girls) who could really benefit from the program. I like to think of my technique as a gender-neutral approach applied in a non-neutral way :D

What I am getting at is that the actual discussions you have with students (or the "media" that you put out) about your team should not include their gender at all. Doing so often alienates people more than it makes them feel included or motivated. Where you focus those discussions however should be based on which students face the most barriers to entry.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

It's not what you say, it's how you say it. We have to appeal to a female student's passion to care/want to help and show her how her personal skills add to making the world a better place for everyone. (As a female engineer, I am personally driven by and strive for positive impact; it is what motivates me and satisfies me as an engineer.)

While the other parts of FRC are also important, I personally want to see more of the female FRC students with their hands on the create/design/build of the robot.

Yes, there is something to be said to what sammyjalex posted: I was just in a meeting yesterday where software was being discussed as the first topic, and there were about ten women in the room. The second meeting topic was a technical design, and there were only three women in the room - me being the only technical woman of the three who had been a member of the design team (there were three other women involved with the design, but they were not at the meeting). The other two women in the room were admin assistants.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

Yes, FLL has come up with some socially interesting challenges that are effective in gender-neutral recruiting. They seem to have boiled down to a robot running around doing something that fit into an appealing story about doing good.

So, now, many high-end (and the capability is quickly moving down market) automobiles can detect, warn and even effectively react to and avoid collision hazards. What is more socially responsible than preventing accidents? That technology has been lying around FRC for years. Such things should be part of the appeal of FRC to the students, independent of gender

Perhaps FRC should not be a contact sport, but an avoid contact sport? Rig the bumpers, or no bumpers at all, with sensors that detect and report contact, and a scoring system that penalizes it? This end the inane arguments about the necessity of physical defense in the game (and the libelous assertions that any active (monetary) support of a pure offensive approach is heresy, and must be shouted down); true defense, as in the real business world, will be technology, finesse, influence and adaptability, not "my 6 CIM and n-speed gearbox will kick you your 4-CIM and n+1 speed gearbox around the field all day and into next week." The skills female humans exceed males at are "finesse, influence and adaptability." Let's reinforce the skills that are truly useful in life; muscular physical prowess is not something that counts in most commercial free markets or a corporate boardrooms. A lot of the aggression is necessary, some is required. Eviserating you opponent is not. Careful assessment of the player's motivations, and the ability to craft solutions where most of the parties involved win something near what they want, is what makes society better.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

The Killer Bees have had a team of 50% male and 50% female for the last three years. Here is what we do:

1. Recruit from FLL. These students already know FIRST and the fun of challenges and competitions.

2. Recruit students who were not in FLL. Some of these students have deep experience in how things work and they may have been in another program in middle school (Destination Imagination, VEX, other robotics programs, Science Olympiad, etc.)

3. Sell the program to the parents. The reality is that we need the parents to drive their students to and from meetings for about 2 years. If the parents are sold, then the students will be too. Some things we make sure the parents know about include the money for scholarships, the internships available to high school students, the skill development, the real-world applications of math and science, the reference letters our mentors will write for the students, the sense of belonging to something bigger than yourself, the list goes on. And we work with the parents of our student leaders to make sure they know what the time commitment is.

4. We have the students go recruit other students. The students arrange to demonstrate the robot during lunch periods, during the freshmen "meet and greet", during the last few days of the school year at the middle school and any other school event we can get to with the students and the robot. This has been our "secret sauce" in getting more girls to join the team. We send our current team members (girls and boys) and they go talk to their peer groups and the peer groups that are several years younger.

5. We do demonsrations in our community. When we are at an event, our students talk to everybody. "What high school do you think you will go to? School ABC? That's great - they are Team number xyz and their website is at .....com. You should make sure to contact them. "

Once we have them recruited, this is how we retain them:

Team selection: We initially prioritize selecting freshmen and sophomores for the team. This way, we have a chance to teach them over multiple years and we get a chance to know them well. Sometimes, we will have students apply to the team as juniors/seniors - and by then, we need these upperclassmen to be experts. We view this as a 4 year experience.

At our initial meetings, we throw everyone out of the CAD/software/media rooms and put them in the shop. We have the upperclassmen show the NewBees how to make a bracket. In fact, we call them "Freshmen Brackets". Some of these brackets end up on the robot. In 2014, every student made a part for the robot. All 42 of them. Even the "Chairman's"/PR team.

During their initial year on the team, we don't assign students to a subteam. We used to do this and when we did exit interviews with the students, we have been told that "You put me on the electrical team and I hated it. I wanted to program". We have an open structure where the team leads can have any number of students help them with a project or task and those students learn skills and concepts they might not have had a chance to learn before. This way, students learn across the spectrum - electrical, mechanical, machining, programming etc. We strongly believe in having students teach other students. If you teach it, you know it. And we do this year-round. Student are expected to participate in all 4 seasons (Fall - Pre Season, Winter - Build, Spring - Competition, Summer - Preparation)

How does this get girls on the team and to stay on the team? Because they see that they can participate equally with any other student. We select leaders for our team who will do the best job. Because of this skill development, we have had had a 100% female drive team this year. Last year it was 33% female/66% male. In 2012, the drive team was 100% male. Next year it will be different.

Especially when the NewBees are in the shop, the mentors will make sure everyone is comfortable. Some of the machines are scary. They go out of their way to show everyone how to properly operate the machines and they may need to do this more than once. They know that if they can get the students interested in what happens in the shop, then the students are hooked on this program and will stay. When we do have students leave the team before graduation, it has been from the group of students who do not have an interest in building the robots.

During our wrap-up at the end of every meeting, every group reports on what they did. Most of the time, we make the newest Bee "stand and deliver" and the student leaders help guide them. This builds confidence in knowing what you are talking about. The team leaders make sure to give some type of positive feedback to the group in front of the rest of the team.

This is our system that we have developed over many years. It works for us.

TL; DR
Do we specifically recruit girls to our team? Yes, we do.
Do we specifically recruit boys to our team. Yes, we do.

Julia

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

I'm wondering if hands-on STEM focused camps could help attract females to STEM?

POWER Camp (Preparing Outstanding Women for Engineering Roles) is a National Summer Camp hosted at IUPUI in Indianapolis. It is open to incoming 9th graders to graduating high school seniors, it costs $210 (they have scholarships) and the students have to find their own way to get to the camp (they will pick you up and drop you off at the airport).

They have had great success in getting girls interested in engineering careers and have had students from all over the US take part in the program.

As part of POWER Camp students also get to visit the Indiana Robotics Invitational (IRI) on Friday from 9:30am - 1:00pm.

They have 40 slots available and are starting to fill fast, I would love to see more FIRST students involved with the camp. PM me if you have more questions.

Information Page: http://www.engr.iupui.edu/infofor/co...power-camp.php

Application: http://www.engr.iupui.edu/infofor/co...0for%20web.pdf

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

The answer is yes, if you can get them to sign up for it.

Hands-on activities are the most powerful tool to spark the interest of female students in STEM. Keeping women in STEM careers is a whole other issue.

This past December, I built toothbrush robots with about 170 female students in an engineering magnet program, telling the students that this is a lesson in creativity and design. There are no directions. That they could make their robot any way they want to make it with their kit of parts containing everything they needed. The only requirement is that it should move when they are finished. (KOP: 1 button battery, 1 pager motor, 1 toothbrush head, 1 rubber band, 2 googley eyes, 1 pipe cleaner, and hot glue.)

We went through troubleshooting the battery and motor, c.g., and the creative design process. I'm watching for who gets it on their own right away, who works as a team, who copies off their neighbor, and who doesn't try at all. While some students want to socialize with each other the entire time.

The students fill out a survey; It was the most well-liked workshop of the entire event.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

1710 does many things to encourage females to become a part of STEM related fields. We have our innovative YouGoGirl! program, which has returned outstanding results. Our team had only four girls when it was founded, now 15 of 41 team members are girls, and that number is growing. For more information check out some pages on our website.
http://www.onwravens.net/firstrobotics/you-go-girl/
http://www.onwravens.net/firstrobotics/trading-cards/

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

Any suggestions on how we can help encourage them to sign up?

I just saw some information on how to build those and thought it looked pretty interesting. What was the event and how long was that specific workshop?

How does the 15 number break down in terms of the areas the girls are involved on the team? For example how many girls are involved with the building & design process, or in the pit at competitions, or on the drive team? I spent quite a bit of time talking with 1710 students at the CMP event this year and really enjoyed learning about your YouGoGirl! program!

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

I actually think this is a bigger issue than having a continuous program. As I've seen, a lot of girls join FRC teams but slowly drop out of the STEM aspect of FIRST. It attributes to why you see more girls do more of the business development/outreach aspects of teams. There's just a different personality that people develop when "in the shop".

From what I can tell a lot of teams that fare well with girls, also have good mentor-ship. Just like a shy or challenged student, I think for most girls it just takes more/better support or time.

^ great idea but how? Are you guys looking at starting earlier for girls or doing separate training session for them? I find it hard (not with girls) but other shy students to get them to contribute equally during full team meetings.



Another interesting thing that I've heard/would like to read more about (probably will if I remember tonight) is biological differences if there are any or whether the majority of the gender differences comes because of societal norms. It seems as though at a young age, toys are also very gender-biased with girls playing a lot of things that are creative (tea/house) and boys playing with things that seem to be more structured and work a certain way. I'm curious (and I'm sure there are studies) as to why this is. I found this TED Talk interesting (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d77mMXahsME), as a mother she has an interesting perspective of having a baby boy vs. a baby girl.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

This section interests me. I've always thought boys' toys inspire creativity (building blocks) while girls' toys are pretty concrete (dolls). Also these toys reinforce a spatial awareness in boys and nurturing in girls.
I'm intrigued that you think the opposite. Creativity in roleplaying rather than creativity in creation.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

I think the important step here is to move girls into leadership roles. We'll have a female captain for the third year in a row.

The most important aspect is giving girls more time to participate and being conscientious about reaching past the first volunteer. It involves more mindfulness. It's almost making student leaders aware of taking these steps--leading by example.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

When my oldest daughter joined the team, she was half the girls on the team. One of the male students (who is now an excellent mentor and RI) handed her a piece of wood and said, "we need this cut x by y". She didn't have a clue how to do it so he showed her how to measure and cut. The next time they needed something cut it was handed to her and she did it on her own.

Don't treat the girls any different then you treat the guys. Give everyone a chance to learn each aspect and let them gravitate to what they like. My oldest daughter is now considering a career in Engineering because of her involvement on the team.

This year our team was about 50/50 male/female and, with my youngest daughter and her friends joining next year, we may have more young women on the team then young men. :D

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

Agreed mostly.
If a team is 90% boys and 10% girls, whatever. If that's the opposite, whatever. If it's equal, whatever. A good program is a good program regardless of how many males or females it has involved. A program that focuses on equality is prone to produce those 'token minorities', and that's even worse since it leads to further enforcement of stereotypes and demeaning of individuals. A segregated approach to recruiting only leads to segregation, in my experience.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

We started a joint program with the local engineering magnet middle and magnet high school. Reaching out to the general public is more difficult and takes way more organization and advertising (I can't stress time in advance to advertise enough). Thus, I am going to suggest reaching out to the local Girl Scouts, Boys and Girls Club, 4-H, day care/childcare centers, etc. or just do the workshop within a local teacher's classroom as a guest speaker on career day/teach-in day/science day.

The workshop can take anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes. It really depends on how much you want to talk and how much help the workshop leader has in the room to help the students troubleshoot the batteries/pager motors.

For 170 students (35 students per class with 3-4 adults to help), you will need to order parts for 200 kits. By shopping around on the internet for the parts, the cost should be about $200. The 10-15% parts overage is needed because not all the pager motors/batteries will work or the students will accidentally 'disable' their pager motor by various methods of handling it. The toothbrush handles will need to be cut off in advance. We placed each KOPs in snack-sized ziplock bags.

We take a roll of paper with us to put on the tables to protect them from the hot glue (about 8 to 10 hot glue guns), a couple power strips are a must, and set-up time to let the glue get hot before the first class. We also do the safety briefing that the glue is hot and the students have to be careful not to burn themselves with it. Also, make sure to have a package of glue sticks.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

I agree with this 100%. This year was my first year being an official captain and last year I really started to spread the word about robotics. This year we had 6-8 girls that showed up to meetings regularly. Last year we had 1. Having dedicated females in leadership roles that are passionate about what they do will draw more people in. I find myself constantly talking about my team as well as other teams in the community to my friends who aren't in robotics. Some of them even came to support the team at regionals and are joining next year! Having a girl as the one who would speak at meetings and outreach events around the school seemed to make girls more comfortable in joining this male-heavy sport.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

I think you're missing the point of this discussion. Currently women are underrepresented dramatically (not just ~45%) and their is a dearth of girls in the STEM education pipeline. The point is not to focus on a final objective with a fixed % (a failure of the Title IX sports program enforcement in my view), but rather to focus on WHY girls aren't participating. Having a "good program" that continues to do what it did in the past and is still 90% boys is actually a failure by this measure. What we need to do is to change the culture of these programs. This probably means reigning back the brashness of many of the boys who like to join robotics teams and then feed each others' egos. It means focusing on improving social networks and events on the teams. There will be side benefits--many of these boys will have improved social skills as well as better technical knowledge.

Acknowledging that current behavior by boys on these teams can be driving away girls may be uncomfortable for some, and teen age boys don't like to be told that they should reconsider how they behave and interact. But that's what is as the core of changing the FRC culture.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

Probably one method that's taken for granted is telling girls that STEM activities isn't just for boys. Most of the time, they have doubt and would probably feel like there aren't any other girls in the team. Give an example of a girl in the team who has made massive contributions. It does work.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

So interesting you bring this up, 2/4 captains of a team I'll keep undisclosed, are girls, but they both take on more roles in the non-STEM aspects of the team. While at least one of them was initially very active in building the robot.

My impression is that they are probably the MOST excited about FIRST, but are overwhelmed by the boys that are REALLY into building. I don't know the dynamics of the team very well, but there's certainly a subconcious gender conflict happening that keeps things separated.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

I suppose you're right. I will say, that girls still need to come up with what to do with dolls, and invent story lines or whatever else.

Perhaps the better idea to compare is how rigid the boundaries for the toys are. It seems like boys' toys (building blocks, car tracks) work a certain way, but girls' toys (dolls, tea sets) require going beyond the limitations or perhaps maybe it's the girls that go beyond the limitations rather than the toy "requiring it".

Well...one thing's for sure, there are differences in the toy sets, and I wonder if that alters things. Playing with dolls vs. cars, I can definitely see how that would change you. Dolls are more of a social toy vs. cars are more of a "engineering" (not the right word) toy.

Hmm, perhaps that's the difference I'm trying to allude to, and this is something CitrusDad mentioned about girls being more socially aware than boys.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

I've hesitated to post here because I'm pretty sure I'm an edge case, or at least, not representative of any sort of majority of girls.
I wish my experience with STEM as a young girl were typical. When I was seven, I asked my dad to teach me how to talk to computers- and he tried. I wanted to be a fairy princess, then found out that engineering and science were essentially magic. I had a big sister in STEM. I had a close friend (also female) who I moved ahead in math with. And I was always, always encouraged.

Yes. This is where I had an advantage my first year- I've always been somewhat socially oblivious, so I didn't quite notice. For another girl on our team, she saw it as a challenge and loved breaking expectations. But we were probably outliers, and there were others who left. Out team's better about it now, with about 30-40% of our members being female, a few female mentors, and about half of our student leadership being female.
(If you're curious, for 2014-15: captain- female; co-captain- female. Subteam leads: mechanical design- female, machining/fabrication- female, electrical- male, robot programming- female, app (scouting) programming- male, business/media- male. I'll pull out the gender ratios by subteams from 13-14 later.)
We're going into our third year with a female captain. The first year with a female captain was about the same time we reached that critical mass. I don't know which one caused the other, but I'm happy about both.

At some point, I realized that I had already been exposed to many important lessons of FRC, though in a different medium. I'd learned to sew, knit, crochet, and spin at a young age, and had already been unconsciously using what I'd learned there: iteration, problem-solving, meticulousness, necessity of simplicity, deadlines, need to understand the lower level, design requirements, practicing, consequences, putting things back where they came from, importance of mentors, healthy respect for but not fear of power tools.
I really wish I had noticed the similarities earlier. As soon as I did, I gained a level of confidence that helped me.
It would be a good idea to reach out to the yarn/fiber/fabric communities. There are a lot of good potential students there, many of them female.

(Note: Mr. McCann is one of my team's mentors.)
My first year I managed to pretend my way out of being shy, and I stayed, but I've never been quite as assertive as I needed to be. As the team captain in 2013-14, even with all the support I needed, this was a bit of a problem. I don't know if that personality quirk is because I'm a girl, but...
If I hadn't been a girl, would I have learned to always be accommodating and be a good hostess? Learned to walk a half step behind anyone who I thought of as in a position of authority, usually including anyone older or taller than me? To wait for the invitation, then for a fairy to fix my problems? To not draw attention to myself to avoid being labelled a girl?
Some of those would have happened no matter what gender I was or am. Others I'm not so sure about. The culture that little girls (including me) grow up in often doesn't help us in historically male fields.

I don't have much experience here, but for me the answer was yes, sort of. Some made me super excited about STEM, including COSMOS (coed, one month) and Expanding Your Horizons (all female, one day) and some from our local science center. Others... well, let me just say that one reason why I'm in FRC is because I did a summer program with lego robots and I absolutely hated them.

One last thought.
If you offer me an opportunity because I'm a woman, I'll still take it. I'm going to take every opportunity that comes my way, because I know I'll need to take advantage of all of them in order to get where I want to go. If I find out that it's because of my gender... well, I'll still take it, but don't expect me to be happy about it.

Re: Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST
 

We get that question a lot actually. There is a fairly even distribution. We do have more girls in non-build positions, however, most of our team is in a non-build position. Our team tends to focus on other things. As far as drive team, we have had a girl on drive team the past three consecutive years, and have had them on it in years before that too. At offseason events we try to get completely female drive teams out there.