Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

:)

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

where r the hot chix?

Re: Girls on Teams
 

That's a dangerous statement.

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

:rolleyes:

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

haha.....wow.

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

Guys, this quote is from the very first post of this thread and it is the purpose of this thread.
Let's get back to that. :)
Jane

Re: Girls on Teams
 

Sí Sra.

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

:ahh: You know what I mean.

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

Well put!

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

Remember to keep it to none-IM style conversation.

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Treat them the same way you would treat guys on your team (alright, there are some things you may not want to talk about around them until you get to know them better, but you know what I mean). Try and include them in whatever is happening; encourage them to take part in team activities. Don't just leave them to fend for themselves. It can be really intimidating trying to fit in with guys sometimes, especially for freshmen.

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

We are very happy about this. :)

Re: Girls on Teams
 

Fembots are an all girls team as well! :)

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

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

GO GIRLS!!! :)

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

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

Dont worry :) the world is changing!

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

GIRLS RULE::ouch::

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

2 of our current drive team members are girls

1 of our 2 current co-captains is a girl

Our current scouting lead is a girl

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

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

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

One of our 3 current lead programmers is a girl

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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

Re: Girls on Teams
 

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