The girls on our team are either working on intel, software, electrical, spirit, fundraising, awards, animation, robot/field fabrication, photography, web design... you know, girl stuff.

The X-Cats have 20 girls and they all contribute to all aspects of the team.

With all of this gender imbalance, have any teams considered or implemented affirmative action-type things?

ok, forgive me if this is a little scathing...

what exactly is "girl stuff!??" as far as i know, i can work just as hard hammering together & screwing together a frame as any other guy on our team. at the beginning i was like "um...build a robot...heh" but seriously, once you learn about it, the "girl" thing is indifferent. so, it's not girl stuff, it's really about what you're interested in. i know that my advisor (who is a guy) said that his idea of an enjoyable weekend was not taking apart and reassembling a car, but that sounded like a lot of fun for me. so, what's with this discriminatory stuff? just because girls tend to be a bit more creative doesn't mean that they can't get dirty.

hey, i've got more grease and spray paint on my clothes than most of the guys...

Let's be sure not to swing the pendulum too far to one side, okay?

::Adds her two cents...well one, I am poor::


Well, in all actuality, on my team, there is no, the guys are better, he girls are better. Basically our team consists of me and my friend Matt. Lords knows I have done more work than him (he has called it my Robot before) but I don't say that. True I crack on the guys a lot, ask Oak Ridge or our Mentors, but we bot have the sae capabilities, itis just a matter of whether or not we use them. I am better at Matt at a lot of the manual labor stuff, but I woulda bee lost the first week without his knowledge, evey team ha equal cotribuaions from guys and girls in my opinion, no matter what they do, it is equally important. Cheerleading, building, or whatever the case may be...


And it i prooven girls are more creative, I won't deny that, but still, lookat who came upwith ost of the designs for the robot..the guys usually, and yes, I am a girl, so that is saying a lot giving guys props there, haha

Cybersonics Technology Team 103
 

You can meet all of the 2002-03 student members of Cybersonics and learn their team roles here:
http://www.cybersonics.org/cybersoni...03/members.asp

We have 33 student members (counting our two Middle School students), 15 are female and are represented in every department and aspect of our team operations.

ok, i will give you that the guys work hard too, i'm not disputing that. c'mon, without the guys we probably wouldn't be mercury...or have the purple monkey joke...

we also wouldn't have the idea of grips to rotate boxes (i actually wasn't there for that). the statement wasn't about who was better, just that there shouldn't be discrimination about it. guys or girls, we all work together, don't we?

I can't go to SVR tomorrow because I'm the only girl on the team and we couldn't find a female chaperone for tomorrow...It really sucks because I'm arm controller half the time...*shrugs* I'm just saying that there could be some disadvantages...

Why do you need a female chaperone? Are you guys staying overnight at SVR, or driving down. If youre staying overnight, I could see the need for a female chaperone.

Cory

We're staying over, the drive is too long.
Why couldn't I have just stayed in a room alone or something?! :(

Reply to M Krass
 

Reply to M Krass

I took it upon myself to actually ask my women engineering friends if they ever felt any intimidation (and even any discrimination) by being in engineering because they were women. I, according to you, am obviously oblivious to this discrimination against women because I am male, so why not ask those who would experience this discrimination first hand. Not a one said that they felt intimidated or discriminated against because they were women in a mostly male field. They thought it was funny that I even asked! In fact, they actually agreed with me that their female peer probably did need some excuse for getting out of a field where the drop out ratio exceeds 2/3! Maybe, according to you, they (my female engineering student friends) are arrogant too because they havn't "experienced" any discrimination.

Contrary to what you seem to believe, men arn't telling them that they should go to what you call "inferior" work. As much as you believe that the male population is creating this glass ceiling over women, NOT ALL OF US ARE! Especially not at UCF. (and if it exist, it's rare) The fact that there are few women in engineering doesn't automatically justify your theory that men are creating this "glass ceiling", limiting their opportunities in the work force. Fact of the matter is, many women prefer other fields of study. I've met women who were exceptionally good at math and science, some better than me, but just didn't have as much interest in things like engineering as they do in other fields. They didn't deter from it because there are more men in the field or because society told them to do something else.

And as far as this discrimination that I and my fellow female engineering colleagues are not seeing, where is it? You very pompously said you had to face endless discrimination. It's funny how it's endless yet we barley notice it. The college of engineering is just like any other college. You go to class, you learn, you take a test. How do you expect us to discriminate against a women here? Are the male teachers giving them unfairly lower grades because they see a women's name on the paper? Really!!

looking at his original post, it sounds like he was joking. he listed like every task you COULD have done on a team ;)

I am a member of Team 60, and I am one of the people that does a lot of work. I have done PR, Machining, I memorized the rule book, helped with the website, and done TONS more.

What about the guys?

I mean, yeah, sometimes girls don't do much, but I am sure that there are boys on teams that don't do anything either. I know that there are some on OUR team.

I don't think it's a matter of gender.

I think it's a matter of dedication.

And if the girls on your teams think that robots are too masculine, then that's their choice. As a girl, I wouldn't rather be doing anything else. I am all about robotics, and I am sure that there are others that are like me


Amanda

I agree totally. My life revolves around robotics. I would much rather get into this than cheerleading or choir or anything else school can offer.