[FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

Posted on the FRC Blog, 10/31/14: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...-New-SWE-Grant

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

The driver requirement is leaving me scratching my head. Why must "driver" be the leadership position they chose for this grant? There are plenty of other high profile leadership positions on a team, many of which carry far greater responsibility than driver. Not to mention, many teams don't select their drivers for the upcoming competition season in November, so applying for this grant would handicap their ability to select drivers later down the line.

Seems like a silly requirement for an otherwise good grant.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

I've had a couple of discussions elsewhere online on this one too. I'm going to copy/paste what I've said elsewhere with some edits for wording/clarity, but whatever. Here goes...

--

Being totally honest here, I think this is pretty poorly defined and SEVERAL steps backwards.

1) Requiring a female driver. Why? If a driver is good they're on drive team, it shouldn't matter their gender. (This is my same point about everything on teams. Be special because you're useful, not because you're female.) Also, being a robot driver doesn't necessarily make you a leader, but it does make you a joystick monkey. Require a female captain if you're going for leadership; and even then, it’s a silly idea. Good concept, bad execution.

The problem with this is teams will just throw a female human player in there for the free money. "How many matches does the 'token girl' have to be in for me to get my grant?" Will most teams do this? Hopefully not, but it's an easy way to game the system, and a super-ineffective way of getting women to be actual leaders.

2) The 50/50 ratio. What about teams that are 51/49? 40/60? Do I need exactly 25 male and 25 female students to qualify? Where's the cutoff for 'roughly half and half'. Again, this doesn't do much for actually encouraging women in engineering, it just encourages women on the roster. Not every student on a FIRST team is a robot-centric person, and that's okay too! Not to mention, some teams may have already solidified their roster, so there's not much they can do about that qualification anymore.

The only thing I really do like about this is teams having a plan for encouraging diversity. IMO, the qualification for this grant should be the 'best'/most effective diversity initiatives and not 'throw a girl in your team's spotlight so you can get some money'. We have enough of a team-culture-issue accusing teams of that already without this grant aggravating the problem.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

+1 on this. Thank you for articulating a viewpoint with which I wholeheartedly agree.

In order to meet the 50/50 criteria, I have to cut half of my team or 2/3 of the boys. Frankly, $1000 isn't worth that, nor is it worth the addition of 32 more people (girls or boys) to a large roster. Also, what if a team is 100% girls? Do they not qualify because it's not a 50/50 split? Is the SWE organization insightful enough to know what names are girls' and boys' names from a roster?

Last year, 2/3 of our top leadership spots were females, even though the team was 1/3 girls. Last year's human player was a female - does that count as a driver? 2 years ago, the girl who eventually became team captain was drive coach - does that count as a driver?

We run programs in the elementary and middle school level to encourage girls to develop STEM skills and gain an interest in pursuing technical education/careers. Does that count for something?

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

I'm sure for the teams that qualify, this will be a nice source of funding, but I'm not sure many will, and I also don't entirely understand the rationale behind some of the requirements-- if a team is 50/50, isn't it a decent assumption that they're already pretty solid in terms of recruitment diversity and awareness of the issue? It seems to me like two grants were mashed together to make this one-- one for teams pursuing gender equality in their team and another for those who achieved it.

I do however applaud SWE and FIRST for putting this together-- it's always nice to see new partner organizations and funding sources appear.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

Agreed. They don't really define how this will be enforced other than saying pit admin will "verify" it. Let's also theoretically say that 'someone' will verify it during a match. What if my female driver happens to be a chairman's presenter and is missing that match? What if, assuming we need a female driver for all of our events, she ends up being unable to attend an event?

"Driver" being the distinction for a female leadership sounds very arbitrary when there are other (and, arguably more significant) leadership positions that a girl can hold on a team.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

Our team has a solid and positive record on diversity issues, with a solid track record of converting non-prior inclined young women into pursuing engineering and science careers. We send more girls than boys into engineering. The girls are dominate in most every aspect of the team.

We are doing well regarding diversity. For several reasons this initiative is too flawed as it currently exists. Having said that, we will not be submitting for this grant.

I'll discuss it offline if needed.

Ed

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

By essentially only rewarding those that already meet a final goal, change isn't promoted.

As written, this grant doesn't really encourage teams to shift towards these goals.

Not the most efficient way to throw money around.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

[quote=Lil' Lavery;1407044]The driver requirement is leaving me scratching my head. Why must "driver" be the leadership position they chose for this grant? There are plenty of other high profile leadership positions on a team, many of which carry far greater responsibility than driver./QUOTE]

Who are the four most visible, photographed, video taped, etc... members on any FRC team? The two drivers, the human player, and coach.

FIRST doesn't just want women to have a high profile leadership position on the team, they want women to have a high visibility position on the team. If is 50-50 men to women, but all the drivers/coach/human players are all men, then to an outsider it would look like the team is mostly comprised of men. Having a woman on the drive team would help provide the visibility to outsiders to show that FRC is not just for males.

I am not saying that I think the implementation will be effective, but it accomplishes what the Society of Women Engineers wants to accomplish, making women a highly visible feature of FRC.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

What would teams prefer be the criteria for this award?

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

The grant is a great opportunity to promote women in STEM.
Its too bad we cant meet or agree with some of the requirements, even though we fully support diversity in our program.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

Something along the lines of measurable attempts at progress, versus already achieving a goal (that could easily be unachievable by some of the best programs by circumstances outside their control).

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

I don't really have opinion on this one way or the other, but what is a realistic way to measure this? Number of girl scout events attended? A graph showing the female ratio on team over time for the previous x years?

Do we want to base this grant on feelings or data? Do teams have to include an essay outlining their attempts? Should there be any minimal requirements (such as x% female)?

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

Presumably, this grant will exist for more than one season, giving teams a carrot to strive towards when it comes to promoting gender diversity.

Do you know that visbility is what SWE wants to accomplish? Are you certain that FIRST/SWE are prioritizing visibility over experience and responsibility? I feel that's a big assumption to make.

Secondly, you mentioned four people in your description, "two drivers, the human player, and coach." The grant only calls out "drivers." Does having a female human player or coach count? What if the female coach is a mentor?

While the drivers are the highest visibility at the event, many teams have higher visibility individuals during the rest of the year (aka the vast majority of the time). Team captains, lead mentors, PR members, and presenters will likely have a much higher visibility within their school and community than the drivers will (assuming they're different individuals).

They already have a useful one in terms of the diversity plan they're asking for. Most importantly, I would like better definitions of the requirements (namely 50/50 and drivers) and an expansion of the driver requirement to team leadership.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

I would agree. I've been asked several times by judges at competitions if we are an "all girl team" because the pit is often staffed with girls since they are some of the most dedicated students on the team and in positions of leadership. It used to be that we were a 20-30 student team and we had a roughly 50/50 ratio but now we are are 60+ student team and our ratio is more like 65/35. I think we take an amazing number of female students compared to most teams but we are no where near achieving this and I can't fathom putting our team at risk of winning an event by committing in November to have a female driver when it remains to be seen who the best student for that role is (Keeping in mind that our driver who won the off-season event this past Saturday was a freshman female driver. WOOO!).

I love that we have a lot of female students and I always want to see more of them but I'm not sure the conditions for this grant are going to generate more of them for most teams.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

Furthermore, this grant defines Female far too loosely. Are we talking biologically female? Identifies as female? What about other cases, even dealing solely with biological gender there's more than just Male and Female...

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

I personally think the requirements for a female driver and 50/50 ratio be dropped. Requiring a driver/member of the drive team be female promotes teams give a female this position because of their gender which does the exact opposite of what the award promotes and eliminates females who are leaders on their team in areas of the robot or team management. Another problem I have is the need for "at least 50% of their teams members are female" as it starts pushing for teams to be female dominant or to just recruit a ton of females to get their numbers up. It also eliminates most teams who have females who work extremely hard in all areas of the team just because the guys still out number the girls. Its a little sad that a team with 3 girls and 3 guys are eligible in comparison to a team with 40 girls and 50 guys. It also bothers me that there are teams that tout their large ratio of females to males but go for quantity not quality.

The way gender equality gets pushed confuses me so much. All students are to be given an equal chance regardless of their race or gender.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

I for one will not ever add students of a particular gender to my team nor put students of a particular gender in a particular role for the purposes of gaining eligibility for a grant.

If our current ratio of 12 females to 24 males, and our current leadership structure with females in charge of the public interaction, business operations, manufacturing, and design sectors of our team makes us ineligible, so be it. We'll need to look for funding elsewhere.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

Very amusing that many posts are stating what someone else should do with their money.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

Our team will continue to strive to provide excellent leadership opportunities, engineering opportunities, and professional experience to our female members rather than attempt to qualify for this grant. I imagine most FIRST teams will do the same. Encouraging affirmative action is neither gracious nor professional.




Now, to play a bit of devil's advocate, I think I can see SWE's line of thinking. Their goal may be to promote and grow programs where girls have ample opportunity to succeed. They may also think that their requirements (50%, female driver, etc.) indicate a program where girls have ample opportunity to succeed. I think this is strangely restrictive, but I can at least see their line of thinking. If a team is 50% female and at least one female is on the drive team, that team is almost certainly helping to give girls opportunities in STEM.

It worry's me though that they think that an organization that doesn't meet those restrictions is not worth funding. As if having less than 50% and an all male drive team means that you MUST be prohibiting females from excelling (even if unintentionally). If this is true, it is disturbing and sets a terrible example for FIRST. Maybe there is another way to explain the restrictive requirements...

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

I don't think it is that amusing. Some people think that this group is encouraging bad trends by the way they use their money.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

Could you possibly expand on this statement in order to make sure that no one misinterprets you?

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

I think they're just assuming cis female, or identifies at female. Indicating biological sex would risk outing a student who doesn't ID as female, plus the binary can of worms.

I think that a lot of the grant should also depend on if the females in question actually feel comfortable in the enviornment. Just because you do have a solid 50:50 or what have you ratio or a female on the drive team does not mean that all or even most girls on the team feel they are given the chance to speak their mind and allowed an equal chance to participate in what they want to participate inside the team. Especially if a team does try to get this grant by placing a female on the drive team and cause resentment with other members. Then it isn't really indicative of gender equality on the team.
Hopefully the details of the grant or criteria are a lot more specific on the form. I understand why they thought it would be a good idea to create a grant like this, though.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

Yeah that's probably best. I am generally not in favor of affirmative action and was expressing my opinion that I don't believe it to be in line with gracious professionalism. I made the comment in hopes of discouraging other teams from promoting students based on their gender and not on their ability or merit.

It wasn't my intention to accuse or belittle with that statement.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

I personally think that this would be a great way to determine if teams are promoting gender equality but would also be hard to measure. If you look at 2531's past members there have been very few girls on the team, maybe 4-5 total over 5 years. I was the only girl on the team my sophomore year of high school, but over the last year or so we have had almost 10 new girls join our 30 person team. This is because we have become a more active team in our school and community and because of this we have generated more members of all genders, but this is also because our head leader (myself) is a female. When people see me speaking for my team or demonstrating our robot they take notice that our team isn't just a 'boys club.' It is also very clear to the female members that they can be a leader and a valuable member of the team too. Something my team tries hard to convey is that I am not head captain just because I am female but I also wasn't overlooked because I am female. We are not 50/50 but we do our best to encourage females to join FIRST teams.

Going back to the "driver" predicament, I don't feel like this is necessarily a measure of leadership for all teams. I understand they are 'seen' the most at competition and for some teams their leaders are all on drive team but that isn't a universal leadership title. I am not on drive team at competition, my strengths lay elsewhere, but that doesn't mean I am any less of a leader. I don't really know what term could have been used instead to ensure that the team is represented by a genuine female leader.

Honestly, feeling comfortable is key. If teams have an environment that is overall inclusive and makes members feel comfortable then they will most likely generate more female members. Something that drew me to FIRST in general was how accepting and inclusive my team was to me. They didn't treat me any different because I was a girl and I honestly rarely noticed that I was surrounded by boys. To me, they were my teammates and I fit right in.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

It seems that whenever you target a group of people specifically you are always working on a flawed premise. We recruit mostly based on, do you want to join & are you old enough. Really the ideal way to recruit is to recruit, not to try to recruit more of this type of person or that type of person. The best you can do is make sure you are being fair.

I also think more people need to realize a lot of disparities are affected more by social implications. Whether or not the majority of FIRST teams are fair and non-discriminatory won't do as much as the media and culture do in encouraging an individual to pursue one path or another.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

I'm not sure what all of the fuss in this thread is. Some of us have been working for years to get a roughly even ratio. With that, girls will naturally make their way onto and off of a drive team.

Years ago I was against organizations which gave scholarships specifically to girls entering engineering in college. Why punish males for the decisions of the females' parents? Then I had an epiphany - the parents were the root cause and the female-only scholarships were merely a residual effect of someone trying to encourage a better balance. It was at that point I really got on board with some of the non-engineering things my team does.

For a different and culture-based perspective, watch your favorite animated movie on any child-centric TV network. The TV ads that are aimed at children these days still fall along traditional gender role lines. It seems to me like there are two major ways to mitigate this: products like Goldie Blocks, or encouragement of parents to simply turn off the TV and put Legos in their daughters' hands.

Full disclosure, we've had a girl on our drive team for 2 years now. This year we'll have a girl on the drive team and most likely a girl at human player. The girl on the drive team has shown a lot of maturity since her Sophomore year, which is why she's been on the drive team for longer than any other student in our history. Along the lines of what Libby said in her post, she is there because she is a remarkable decision maker, not because she's female.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

I would argue that this is an issue that needs to be fought culturally on a larger scale with stronger role models and legislation that prohibits or punishes gender-bent marketing and merchandising- but not within FIRST.

I'm a firm believer in a team that does not discriminate based on gender. Our team has had (brief) issues with mentors discriminating against women on the team and made sure that it would not happen again. That said, affirmative action - which is what providing financial incentives for teams that have specific roles (e.g driver) filled by women is- replaces one form of discrimination with another.

During the Summer of 2013, I worked at NASA's goddard spaceflight center as an intern. One engineering intern I knew had been contacted for her role specifically because of her gender to keep her project in a 50/50 split. Knowing this made her feel like an impostor in her field- she was just as qualified as the men, but knowing that she had been picked for her gender made her feel otherwise.

Working actively against active discrimination by making females feel welcome is excellent. Working against stereotypes is even better. Providing a financial incentive for teams to achieve gender equality (by cutting male members or recruiting more females) or for teams to promote females to positions of authority is, in my eyes, just plain wrong.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

Another issue that I face with this grant is that even if a team selects members/leaders/drivers without using the grant as a driving factor, the mere presence of these grant funds will lead others to assume that female leaders would not have their positions without the grant money. Unfortunately, these toxic, negative attitudes will be directed most pointedly at the female leaders themselves.

It's a sad reality, but it's something that I see all the time around things like college admissions for engineering schools trying to improve their gender ratio. If a guy gets in, he gets congratulated. Unfortunately, if a girl gets in, there will be people who tell her "you only got in because you're a girl, it's easier for a girl to get in there." This will be heard no matter how accomplished the girl in question is. This mere suggestion not only cheapens the achievement in her mind, but also can lead people to value the wrong things about themselves.

I want my students, regardless of gender, to know without a doubt that if they earn a prestigious position within my team, that it's because they worked ridiculously hard to get there, and that they've accomplished great things. I want them to recognize the value of hard work, skill, dedication, and inspiration, and I want them to understand that no matter who they are, working at similar attributes will allow them to achieve anything they set their minds to. We will continue to push for increased involvement by all within our team, and continue to be mindful of and react to the unique societal pressures young girls can face when joining a robotics team in our approach to mentoring and supporting them, but we will not compromise the integrity of our team or undermine the hard work of each of our students in order to chase money and create feel-good stories. I want people to congratulate girls on FIRST teams in leadership positions on their technical and leadership accomplishments, and on being the best person for the job, instead of congratulating them for being girls on FIRST teams, and being the best girl for the job.

It's a sad, widespread reality of our culture, which isn't really addressed by throwing money at teams that have already achieved a high level of diversity. These teams are the ones who need the extra influence the least, it's the people who will make derogatory assumptions about female students whose culture we need to work on. I don't really have an answer here besides solid mentoring and more role models, but I don't think cash incentives is it.

I hope that the teams that receive this grant are aware of, and able to react effectively to, the negative attitudes and assumptions that some both outside, and potentially within, their teams will unfairly have towards female leaders who have worked incredibly hard to get where they are.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

Lets say a student didn't feel comfortable in an environment. Would they have the confidence to say so when the team could lose out on money if they told the truth?

What if your recruitment is inherently off-putting for people of a certain type (race, gender, religion, etc)? Why would it be bad for a team to look at themselves and explore why they are not diverse? Lets say a high school is 60% female (not unlikely) and a robotics team is 80% male (also not unlikely). Why is it absurd that the diversity of a team reflect the diversity of the school/community that the team pulls from?

Pretty much any STEM-related accomplishment I've achieved has been belittled by someone "because you only got it because you're a girl." Girls already receive those comments anyways. Might as well get something for it.

Man, that gender equality. What a bummer. I can't believe they actually want to support teams that encourage hands-on STEM exposure to females. It's not like research shows that its the most effective at getting girls into STEM.



edit: Why driver and not captain? Not all teams assign a captain (ie 148), but all teams have to assign a driver.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

one of the reasons I believe they chose lead driver as requirement is that it can be verified at competition. anything else is hard to verify. 50 50 on a team roster isn't just having a token girl. one of our teams applied we have a 100% girl team as well as the boys team. we did have to provide our strategy for diversity. I will give an update November 21st that's when they will be letting you know if you receive the grant.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

I don't think anyone is saying its wrong to work harder to reach girls considering I will work a little harder to make sure the girls in the group are getting engaged but that doesn't mean I'm going to give them a position they don't deserve because of their gender.

Yes, encourage and reward teams for getting females hands on in robotics in active, meaningful ways but don't do so in ways that eliminate those meaningful teams or celebrate bad actions. We should celebrate the teams who are actively working to create female leaders among their team regardless of their position on the team and overall team size.

I am also all for groups using their money as they wish but this was not done without some oversight/advice from FIRST. I'm a little disappointed with how this was implemented.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

what we did is we give presentations to and questioned all females in the high school almost 40% of them showed some interest if there was an all-girls team. this is also a high school of 200 total students in grades 9 through 12

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

If I was going to phrase that, I would use "high-visibility position".

I would then define that "high-visibility position" to include the drive team, the team captain(s), the team representative for alliance selections, and possibly Chairman's presenter/outreach lead. I would NOT include head scout, business team, or other similar roles, because they work in the background for the most part. Any one female in any one high-visibility position would work (at least, the way I see it).

Just assuming that the drivers are the most visible isn't necessarily the case-I would say that unless the drivers are actually getting camera time and that feed is actually displayed, the team representative for selections might actually get more if they make it to the field.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

Think about it this way.

Sponsorships and grants make it easier for teams to compete. That's what they exist for. People try to get them in order to lower their burden of entry.

If the SWE wants to make it easier for a subset of teams to compete, it seems completely reasonable that the subset of teams they want to help are the ones that are demonstrating that they actively engage many women. If it's a bar you can't or won't meet, the grant isn't for you.

Think less as the grant trying to force an 80/20 team to become a 50/50 team and more a reward for those teams that are doing well with gender equality. It's not perfect; I think the terms and conditions have some problems, but we don't need to act like the sky is falling because one grant of thousands isn't for us.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

I don't disagree. I think that everyone should take an objective look at their practices and employ them fairly, not tailor them to gain a specific demographic. I think the most we should do is not put anyone of then make sure the message is spread as widely as possible. Theoretically even if a team was perfectly fair with team roles and recruitment exsternal factors (parents, peer pressure, media, etc.) can offten (not always) prevent it from evenly representing the community it is in.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

If NASA (or any other organization) believes that the "team" they are creating will be the better for having a more diverse membership, aren't they justified in hiring anyone who adds to the diversity of the team?

If you disagree with the idea that more diversity does not create better teams, that is fine, many don't. However, if you accept that some organizing bodies believe this, then their implementations make perfect sense.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

My complaint was more along the lines of they could modify their terms somewhat, and achieve what I assume to be their goals for more teams. Granted, my assumptions may be incorrect (that their goals is to have a net increase in female involvement).

For those that are complaining that this isn't morally right, or that jobs should be chosen independent of gender (I agree with that point, I'm sure everyone does)... This is a special interest group that is well within their rights to alocate money how they choose. It's not like NASA passing money out along these lines. I think they could modify their rules somewhat to get better results, but I don't think they should move away from rewarding teams for promoting female involvement.

I don't see how anyone can be bothered by an organization called "Society of Women Engineers" choosing to support females... in engineering.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

Let me put it this way:

You are competent for job X. You are hired for job X. But, if you KNOW that you were hired for job X because you were the nationality you are (and the workplace that has job X specifically needed more of your nationality), and NOT necessarily because you are the most qualified candidate for job X, is that a compliment or an insult? And, regardless of which it is, who is it directed at?




Do not take this to mean that I disagree with the idea that more diversity creates better teams. On the contrary, I agree with that idea. I choose to disagree with the point of view that forcing diversity on the teams (or other organizations) is a good thing in all cases. I could go into some cases in point, but that goes into at least one of the two areas not discussed in polite company. Suffice it to say that I like the Rooney Rule--you HAVE to consider at least one "person of different characteristics" for any open position above a certain level, but hiring them is not required. Once their foot is in the door, it's up to them to apply the leverage to finish opening it.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

That is a very good and noble reason for promoting diversity in a group. I think, however, you will find that that altruistic motivation is rarely the one at play. In every instance of a less qualified applicant being selected based on minority status that I have witnessed (admittedly small sample size), the reasoning has not been that the presence of certain genitals or skin coloring will improve the effectiveness (or "betterness") of that group.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

FRC 4607 could easily qualify for this grant this year. However, after careful (and LONG conversations) we decided that the grant is not fitting for our team. We could fit every segment of the grant's requirements - outside of #10 - we haven't decided on a drive team as of yet.

However, it goes against how we have developed our team - by allowing all members equal access to all segments of our team. We have been working closely with our sponsors to create an environment that enables all students equal opportunities and we feel that by accepting this we may limit qualified candidates from reaching their potential.

I have to state - we have great sponsors, great mentors, and great kids - as all programs do. However, if a possible sponsor/grant limits the potential achievements of the membership as a whole, it is not for us. We are already working closely with our sponsors to allow for achievement in a different manner for different segments of our population.

And as of this post, we have 5 members of our 8 person leadership team (and our strongest leader that encapsulates what our team is striving to be) that are females. On a note, our team captain is not the most outspoken; quite the contrary, she is very thoughtful and soft-spoken. Yet she is able to bring all leaders together and can create a consensus. She has been a part of our marketing team, our electrical team, and is now in charge of the whole team as her demeanor and communication skills have allowed her to rise to the top.

If we had determined leadership positions with certain criteria I do not think that we would be in the spot that we are in now. If the mentors and coaches laid out a master plan - chances of our team captain to rise to the level that she did would be near zero.

Through it all - it is just that the grant does not fit our team. We hope that other teams find that this grant fits them - but for us it would go against our ideals altogether.

So through my reasoning, Chris is me, I agree with your post. It is not for every team - but some teams will benefit greatly from the offering.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

Did they sneak-update the grant requirements? I swear yesterday that having a female driver wasn't optional. Maybe I mis-read it.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

To those arguing against "affirmative action" or that this grant is somehow "discriminatory," consider why it exists in the first place and who is funding it. I recently attended dinner with a large group of volunteers from a FIRST event. There were 18 of us present, only two of which were females. There is a real issue of gender representation in both engineering and FIRST. Like in many other areas of society, work needs to be done to help correct these cultural biases. Everyone would prefer an egalitarian solution, but currently that selection process only perpetuates the issues.

I had (and have) my issues with the requirements process for the grant, but that doesn't mean the grant is somehow morally wrong.

It definitely was not optional yesterday.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

Don't think it was optional. Looks like they're taking feedback, even if it isn't acknowledged. That's a good thing!

Edit: This seems to have been updated as well: "At least 50% of the team is female" vs "Demonstrates 50:50 male-to-female-ratio". This defines the requirements better, but also opens the door to all-girls teams. Steps in the right direction!

Edit 2:
This wording confuses me a bit. So someone who's already been a driver, and then she still has to be a driver next season?

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

The requirements look a lot more concise now. Like Chris/Pinecone said, this grant is available for a specific type of team, and the requirements aren't exactly perfect. Although I'm really glad they include follow-up and observation during a meeting and event. That is really indicative of team climate.

Re: [FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant
 

It was optional yesterday, they only changed the wording.

Yesterday it said:
#5 was originally the female driver requirement

VS today:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...f-55b52b5c4e07