Recruiting Girls
 

Our first goal for the next season is to Increase the number of girls in our team. The main problem is that girls just dosen't apply to the team so i've wanted to ask how other teams encourage girls to join robotics?
:)

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

I think one of the scariest things about joining FRC as a girl is that you are afraid you won't have a place, or that you will embarrass yourself in some way. I think a good way to counter both of these things is to have proper training, and to make sure everyone (not just young women) know that it isn't just about the robot. Ensure that they know there are many facets of the team and there is a niche for them on the team, whether with the robot or something else.

How many girls do you have on your team now?
Do you have any female mentors?

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

The most important thing with targeted recruiting, or for recruiting above what your publicity generates, is the personal appeal. Our head coach is a science teacher, and the vast majority of the young ladies (and most of the non-geeks) on our team were in his science class. You need to be ready to answer reasons like "I don't know anything about robots" [You don't need to know; we teach you] and "I don't want to be the only girl on the team" [We already have N__ and J__, and you can invite a couple of friends to come with you]. Don't downplay the amount of time required, but you may want to emphasize how this amount of time working together helps the team feel more like a family than a club. (You may want to use this angle when recruiting introverted guys, as well.)

Once you have a few on the team, make some effort to ensure that they are included in conversations, especially the "minor conflicts" over robot design. Encourage the ladies to be more assertive with their opinions, and the men to be more receptive of opinions delivered in a more conciliatory manner. Both of them (and probably your robot) will be better for it.

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

I am lucky enough to have two very assertive girls on a six member team one of whom is a state beauty pageant winner. Both girls are excellent team members, true contributors (safety, pneumatics, "build team", initial wiring, design concepts) and future leaders of the team. :)

Our resident state beauty champ desires to be an example for young girls wanting to enter a male dominated field. Her attitude towards robotics is "Beauty, brains and talent"!

She often speaks of working with our State Legislature to have robotics recognized as a sport rather than a club and will probably get a bill passed to that effect (did I mention she is very assertive?)

I feel the FRC would benefit from a recognizing a young woman like her. She is the finest example of young women in robotics and an awesome representative of the sport!

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

I think the key is looking at your materials and seeing what the underlying messages are. I've found that often the unsaid "things" will turn girls away before anything else is communicated. About 70% of what we communicate isn't written/spoken. For example, in one of the videos we often use at events, there are more girls than guys (see here). Being aware of these underlying messages can really help with a push for more girls, minorities, etc.

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

With any recruiting, personal connections are probably the most important factor, followed closely by making people feel that their contribution is important once they are signed up so that they will stick around. We have a small FRC team, and it also splits into three FTC teams in the fall. Last fall, we decided to have an all-girls FTC team which started out with just two committed ladies, and it was very empowering for them. They added a third for the latter half of the season. They were extremely outgoing and shared a positive message about FIRST (they even won the Promote award for FTC at state). Then they recruited middle schoolers from an FLL team for this new school year, as well as other friends they knew. There are going from 2 girls to probably 10+ girls in less than a year, just by sharing what they know and how much fun the FIRST experience has been for them. Like CoachC, we are lucky that the original three are natural leaders, so that certainly plays a roll (a student council president, a soccer captain, and a Dean's List Finalist).

The FRC team we are taking to an offseason event next weekend is going to be 80% girls, which is a total flip-flop from last year. I imagine that once school starts it will be back to 50/50 again, but that's a great number compared to the ~30% number that is the FIRST average.

Now, if only we could find some more female mentors...

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

Demo your robots wherever you are trying to recruit girls from and let them drive the robot. You would be surprised how easily girls will get interested in robotics simply by driving a robot and getting their hands on it.

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

I was a cheerleader before I joined robotics, and now I'm on my team's build department. One of the things that my team does when recruiting is focusing on the fact that there's something for everyone. Knowing that no matter what I wanted to do whether it was wiring, building, taking pictures, graphic design, strategy, or whatever there was something for me. I would suggest really focusing on the fact that there's something for everyone even girls. That usually is a good selling point and can attract more girls.

I would also suggest having your girls register for FIRST Ladies, this is a great resource to have your girls currently on your team talk to other girls in FIRST. It would also be another great way to get advice for recruiting girls.

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

We had a issue getting young ladies involved in our team for several years. One of our girl members suggested we start a 2nd all girls team at our school. So we talked to all H.S. girls and all incoming freshman girls to see if we had enough interest. Well we did! Now our very rural high school of 200 students has a boys and a girls FIRST team. This was the girls 2nd year.

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

OK, I'm confused. This post was made a few minutes ago, in 2015. The girls team started later, and had a smaller number, but both teams have numbers like they started at least five years ago. TBA shows both teams as first competing in 2010. Or are your signature and team affiliation out of date?

Also, while I'm certainly a follower of "You inspire your way; I'll inspire mine," I am concerned that all-girls teams may in the long run be a disservice to both the girls and the boys. The vast majority of female students inspired to STEM careers will end up working (at least for the first decade or so) in a predominately male career field. The vast majority of males will end up working with women; I project that a majority will end up working for a woman at some point in their career. While I've never been one to actively pursue diversity (more power to those of you who do!), when the opportunity arises I'd much rather embrace diversity than to create a segregated culture. Our latest organizational changes require all team members (and strongly encourage mentors) to contribute on both the technical and business side; among the goals is to better integrate the team across gender lines.

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

The girls' team got a number from the other team's rookie year, per standard FRC numbering convention.

Long story short, if a team splits for any reason, and both halves are counted as veteran teams, an unused number is picked from the "pool" of numbers that weren't used--but could have been--during the team's rookie year and assigned to one of the two.

Edit: This document may be of interest, particularly Case 2.

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

Here are the team histories from the FIRST database reflecting what Eric described.
There are quite a few of these older team numbers given to newly formed teams.
21 were handed out during the 2015 season registration. Team 283 is a good example of a new team this year.

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

Thanks for the clarification. While I did realize that "fission" would result in two non-rookie teams when I read the admin book back in January, I did not catch the issuance of a low team number. It was only a couple of months ago that I realized that teams used to be issued different numbers each year; until sometime between Bayou and CMP, I (mis)understood that teams 1 through 28 inclusive played Maize Craze.

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

To expand this idea a bit, all-girls programs have always been an interesting paradox to me. I believe the goal of them is that someday they won't be necessary--that someday everyone, regardless of gender, will be comfortable choosing to participate in whatever they like and no one will notice it either way. Since we're not there yet, programs aimed at girls (or any other minority group) try to increase their confidence to bring them to a point where they believe they can succeed in a co-ed environment. Some people just need more encouragement than others.

In my experience, that isn't always how they work out. Many STEM programs for girls, especially those for younger ones, end up really not showing girls that they can do well in a regular environment but more providing a very strange one that I can't really describe. I guess it's one that some girls like, but I never did and was always hesitant to participate in all-girls programs. But as I was comfortable with regular STEM classes/programs anyway, I wasn't the target audience, so I'm probably not the best judge of this.

My suggestion to anyone, whether trying to include girls on co-ed teams or forming separate teams, would be to show them that they can succeed in a similar environment, not that they're less capable and need a different one. This can work by integrating them into co-ed programs, by having separate ones, or anything in between. With all-girls programs the balance often tips away from aiming for integration in the end and instead creating an unrealistic environment, which is my main worry about them. However I believe there are advantages when that balance is found.


To answer the original question: 1868 is an all-girls team and that plays a role in recruiting. Some girls join because of that fact, others don't really care, and yet others join in spite of it. It's interesting.

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

So far we are really happy with the model of gender-separated teams for FTC and then merging them together for FRC. It's really let people step into leadership rolls in FTC who would likely not had the opportunity if they did FRC alone -- and then it carries over to FRC. We're only one year in, though. I'll let you know how it turns out a decade from now. :)

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

I spent two days last week on a very informative Women in CTE/STEM Training Workshop.
It was very informative and the workshop was based on a lot of research and studies done in many Universities across the U.S.

Our program currently falls under a larger STEM (STEAM) Learning Center we established about 4 years. We have roughly 30% girls but most of them are in our Graphics/Digital Media programs vs. Robotics and the Industrial classes.

A couple of things stood out as a recurring theme based on data and research that was presented to us.
1. One way to attract women to your program is to provide opportunities (tasks) that allow them to help others/the world/mankind/etc. i.e. More into concerns of others vs. competition.
2. Women tend to be more perfectionists, which is why many give up on STEM programs of study early on. Men will delve into hands-on projects more, without concerning themselves about getting every single step correct the first time.
3. Men see technology as toys. Women see them as tools.

One thing I thought was interesting in encouraging more women to pursue AND graduate from post-secondary STEM education programs: Provide entry level students with appropriate type courses and support based on their current skill set vs. a one size fit all (you either meet it or fail).
There was an example of an engineering program where the entrance requirement was a specific math course students took the 1st semester. Half the women failed it, and then subsequently quit or changed majors as a result. The recommendation was to provide additional open lab time for supporting women that needed help, and that eventually, more would succeed in completing undergraduate programs.
I know this part is trivial, but I think the point was trying to convince universities that having different entrance requirements and levels of support based on current student skill set is the most critical point in allowing many more women to succeed in STEM eventually.
It was brought to our attention that Carnegie Mellon is one example of a University that does this.
Also, MIT has the highest % of women graduating from an engineering school.

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

Everyone on this thread has had great advice. When I started in FRC as a freshmen, I was the only girl on the team, besides three female mentors. Not only that; my team wasn't associated with my school, so I didn't really know anyone. I might have gotten discouraged if not for their support. I felt out of place and excluded; I will be the first to say that upperclassmen guys are not the best teachers. But I made it past that. Last year I co-founded a team at my school, and we went to Worlds.

It's very important to have mentors who can make everyone feel included. A lot of times - especially in "cliquey" teams - they're the only ones who see students' true potentials if they're on "the outside." I think it's also important to show teammates that there is no reason for them not to be appreciated. If you're promoting yourself as a supportive group and everyone looks like they enjoy it, then people will want to join.

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

When I was much younger I would have agreed with you completely, but after talking to some educators about the topic, I've changed my tune.

To explain why all-girls teams are not bad, we have to understand that -whether we like it or not- girls are conditioned as they grow up to be submissive and quiet while boys are taught to be loud. The first example that comes to my mind is some study that showed that teachers were more tolerant of boys speaking out of turn than they were of girls (they would tell the girls “raise your hand next time” but not say that to the boys). There is a large collection of ideas (and maybe studies) that conclude that men are taught to dominate and own spaces (not literal space/property) and women are taught to observe and take up as little space as possible (again, not literally). Consequently, in many situations boys will take on leadership roles/talk more/dominate the space - especially domains like STEM where men are perceived to succeed at higher rates than women.

All-girl teams work well for girls who have successfully been trained to be submissive and quiet because without boys automatically claiming the space, they now are able to. This builds confidence, which allows them to be successful when they are in co-ed environments. This is one of the underlying principles behind single-sex education for women. Girls aren’t dumb, they know that they will someday be in a co-ed environment. Having a single-sex environment for developing skills, especially in FIRST where they will interact with boys at competition, is not a detriment or making them “soft”, it’s just giving them a safe space to grow their confidence and skill set.

Many girls who say they would hate to be on an all-girls team (myself included when I was younger) are probably not the girls who would need an all-girls team. If one had the right combination of personal traits and external factors (mentors, parents, etc), they will do well, a point I’ve made before.

Conglomeration of studies with summaries about single-sex vs co-ed

Getting girls (and probably boys) on a team: Hands on experience that has little commitment or risk (ie driving a robot, wiring up a simple but cool circuit, attending an off-season) and inclusionary language (there is something for everyone, you don’t need to know anything).


*Side note: These are quick google searches over my lunch, and I’m acknowledging that they are not the best resources.

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

This is a very important point.

To me, it seems like a big part of getting girls to join teams and stay in them is having female role-models. Mentors and upperclassmen are great for this. If you have any female leaders, I really do suggest making sure they take a dominant role in the recruitment of girls.

For this past year, my rookie year, most of the executive board on my team consisted of girls, and our lead mentor is female. Having that sort of support early on made my transition into being a part of the team a LOT easier than it would have been otherwise. Female role models are great for support and inspiration. Because of them, I can say with a clear head that I am planning on pursuing STEM in the future.

As a result, I recommend that the team builds up a good support system for girls entering, and promotes girls in being active within the team, to recruit and retain female members.

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

Interacting with girls is a big point of it all I noticed. For a few years I've brought our robots to the Girl Scout Day Camp I work at where my name is actually Robot along with another girl from marketing who goes by Pluto. The older girls (4-6th grade) get to spend the night and we go in the morning. We only bring girls including the mentor to strengthen that as well and we set up, talk about what we do, our time restraints, where we're from, etc. etc. Even though they're way too young to join the team there's still FTC and FLL. Parents are there and teen staff that I work with also see it. I was surprised how many people approached me about the presentation afterwards (kids, teens, and adults!). Just getting out there and talking to girls (if not boys and girls equally) then it gets them interested even if it's in the long run.

Supporting girls is an important thing. By showing up with just girls from a robotics team and telling them that they can build something like what we bring in just 6 weeks is really empowering. I also run the only STEM based program on camp, and I could not believe the support I got from everyone and how much they want to push it.

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

I suspect that having girls on the teams makes it easier for other girls to join and get involved. We seem to get a bigger percentage of girls on the team each year - I think we're just under 50% this year.

For our trip to China this August, 7 of the 8 students that signed up are girls. Most of them were involved in working on the robot or making parts. The 1 boy that's going is more of the artistic type. Just thought that was curious...

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

I failed to mention this earlier. Absolutely!!
I reflected on our own program and realized we never considered finding guest speakers based on gender also.
Females seeing female role-models is absolutely critical.

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

Agreeing with the gist of everyone else's ideas. It's really important to have personal examples. You can say you boy to girl ratio all day, but if you can't say "this is ____, she's our head of programming" or "this is ____, she's the best graphic designer ever", then it doesn't give any reference to prospective students. Being able to point to a role model that shows girls can be successful on the team is a powerful tool. Also, having girls on outreach is good too, because only having boys representing your team gives off the vibe that there aren't any girls. No one wants to be the only one.

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

Granted most of our girls are homeschooled and thus really aren't exposed to a lot of stereotypes/don't care at all about peer pressure...
You get them the same way you get other students: word of mouth. Don't treat them different. Affirmative action style programming makes people feel like they're getting on the team because they're a minority, not because they have actual value they can give to the team.

You get more girls the same way you get more boys. Have a solid outreach program that isn't exclusionary, and have a solid team that isn't exclusionary. Don't divide people up into groups. That's all.

Granted, yes, you're going to have to treat all individuals differently, and yes, that means you may end up being more emotionally sensitive to the girls and more factual to the guys. (Of course there's cases where the reverse is very much true)

TL;DR: People are individuals, not collectives; treat them as such!

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

If people are individuals, why is your blanket supposition also that you should be more emotionally sensitive when dealing with women?

:/

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

Did anyone mention lower standards for girls or other minorities to make the team? The question was asked (and is being answered) about targeted recruitment, and a bit about retention. The bottom line is that the culture is skewed to under-inspire girls and minorities to careers in STEM. The mission of FIRST is to inspire everyone who may be called to a career in STEM. Until we've changed the culture enough that there's no bias against women and minorities pursuing in STEM, we have to work a bit harder at inspiring some people than others.

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

If teams and meta-teams find it useful to separate genders as team members are learning what gender means, that's OK. My point earlier was that by High School, most students understand their gender identity, and we should be moving beyond that towards a team structure that is gender-agnostic. And here's the hard part that I've only learned/accepted in quite recent years: this is true even when the team member's plumbing doesn't agree with the member's identity.

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

If you want want easy, then have a monolithic team. Same sex, race, culture, religion. Unfortunately, while easy, this will not prepare students for life. In today's society it is a great personal skill set to be able to deal with diversity.

Early on when I first became a First mentor our team tried the girl sub team and boy sub team. Total failure.

Since then my mantra has been, "The girls have to learn how to play with the boys". And just as important. "The boys have to learn how to play with the girls". It is not easy. It is something that requires constant effort ever meeting and intervention to help them work together. On our team the older students really help by their interactions. So it is hard, requires constant effort. The pay off is the power of a diverse well integrated team.

"The girls have to learn how to play with the boys" "The boys have to learn how to play with the girls"

Re: Recruiting Girls
 

The biggest problem with recruiting girls on my team is that girls don't want to join because there aren't many girls on the team. We have one (maybe two) girls on my team. We would love to have more, but when we ask girls to join their first question is always "How many girls are on the team?". When we tell them one or two, they immediately don't want to join. Telling them that we have a female mentor doesn't help either.

The problem is it's a self-fulfilling prophecy: girls don't want to join because there aren't any girls on the team, but there aren't any girls on the team because they don't want to join (because there aren't any girls on the team). We have even tried recruiting a whole group of engineering-focused girls at once (to quote our mentor "girls travel in packs"), but we had the same problem, despite our trying to explain that there will be plenty of girls on the team if they all join.

This season we might have a few more girls join, as we are publicizing that the team is more than just engineering, but it's likely we will still have the same problem. It's okay for now (the team isn't 100.0% boys), but if this pattern continues, soon there won't be any girls left on the team, and that is a problem. Besides just not being a diverse environment which isn't as fun, we get less funding and more funny looks when people see that the team is entirely boys.