Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

Thread created automatically to discuss a question in the Q&A Forum.

Girls on Teams

Girls on both my old team, TechnoKats, and my current team, The Storm, can hold any position they want and earn. TechnoKats has had female human players, and they had to earn the position in direct competition with males on the team. We have also had girls as team leaders, and in most other positions.

On the Bomb Squad girls are allowed any position boys are, although they tend to be more interested in the chairmans award and community outreach that in the machineshop or driving(with a few exceptions ofcourse).

cyberblue is very proud of the girls on the team. we (like all teams) have girls who don't do much (of course some guys don't do much either) but we also have a girl who is lead on electronics, and a girl who will be the first one in there to burn her hand or cut herself wherever needed. go stanish!

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

Our team is almost all boys, but we have five girls who come with some consistency. Of those five, one is President, one if vice president, and one is treasurer and head of scouting. If there's a lack of opportunity for girls on other teams, we certainly don't share it on 449.

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

On the team I mentored in college, we had a trio of young women who ruled supreme. Simply put, they were the most motivated students we had. I'm reasonably confident that if I had told them they couldn't make the robot fly, they would have proven me wrong. Over the years the team had between 4 and 7 students total.

On the team I participated in during highschool, there was a much wider spread in the responsibilities of the females. We had upwards of 50 students total, so the statistics averaged out a bit. We had a lot of strong young women that did everything anyone else did. Unfortunately, we had a few other girls who brought stereotypes with them.

There are sexist people out there that will attempt to force young women to be girls. Hopefully, they are a dying breed. However, they are not 100% of the problem; It is the burden of young women everywhere to not be sexist against themselves. A few refrains of "I'm just a girl" and it becomes true.

I've had the pleasure of working with a lot of really smart/capable/fantastic women engineers. It is clear to me that gender doesn't play into engineering capability, only perceived capability.

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

This year we have a female captain, assistant captain, lead competition driver, booth coach, pit crew members, head of media, head of electrical and 2 out of 3 Chairman's presenters.

Generally our team runs about 40% female, but it just seems like the girls are always ready to "step up to the plate" and take on responsibility.

Way back in 2000 & 2001 we had a few guys give the girls a hard time for being in the shop. We quickly put an end to that behavior and have not had a problem since.

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

Well, our team also has females...and here are a few of the roles they hold.

1 is Vice President
2 of them are part of the pit crew.
1 of them is involved in community outreach.
1 of them is really involved in scouting.

The school representative/mentor is also a female. We have never had a problem with females on our team. Over the years team 1261 has encouraged females to join our team.

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

I was the webmaster and media producer because I had the most experience as the Chief Technology Editor of the high school newspaper.
Us girls had the option of doing whatever we wanted, so I also helped with design, tried my hand at Autodesk, and helped with wiring when I needed to. I was also part of the pit crew at the Oregon Regional. As the webmistress, I also ended up doing a lot of communication with other teams.
I wouldn't think that any team would openly say girls aren't allowed to do shop and such. It's just easier for us to slip into doing what we supposedly do good: the whole human relations thing.
And so I suppose I did the same thing... this year. But that's only because I knew I had next year. I wanted to help this team do its best by doing what I know best. But even so, over the course of our team's short history, my knowledge and interest in the STEM fields has increased dramatically.
Now that I'm addicted to FIRST, next year I'm going to be the team captain, coach/teach the FLL kids, and so on. My personal goal is encourage girls not to be so scared of robotics, like I was when I switched out of my Introduction to Robotics class freshman year. My team and FIRST is doing a much better job at encouraging me to learn in these fields.
My second-in-command, the other returning senior next year, will also be a girl. Next year, OCPro seems like it's going to be predominantly female led. It shall be great, I tell you.



Cheerleading?... that's pretty sad.

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

Out here in Colorado, Alpine Robotics Team 159's got two female captains, one of them the head of programming and the other cocaptain of the team as a whole. Also, we've got two girls working on public outreach, and one who's one of the best we have in the shop.

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

Out here in Austin, TX, estrogen is essential! I'm one of two female student project managers on the WHS Chap Robotics team. Each of our 9 females on the team (out of 34 students total) has taken on such a leadership role, utilizing both their organizational talents and technical expertise. In fact, only one of our subgroup leads is male (we have women heading such divisions as build, marketing/business, media, and education/outreach).

But our rise to these leadership roles could not have occurred without a support network, a network that was decidedly male. Like many have said, oftentimes girls will find themselves relegated to a second-tier status in technical fields due to their sheer lack of experience. But rather than denying us for our want of training, the males on our team embraced us and taught us instead, communicating the secrets of the shop. I've never been treated with anything less than complete respect. And though we've had to earn our positions, we women have always been acknowledged for our merit.

Just yesterday, when fundraising and distributing outreach information at our school district's 50th anniversary, multiple female engineers came up to me and told me how proud they were to see women excelling in robotics. They, themselves, had faced much resistance in their professions, but were excited to have passed the torch so successively on to a new generation.

Well, anyway, we've been quite lucky, having both strong women and supportive males. The gender divide is so non-existent that I'll work hours at a robotics event and not realize until it's over that I was the only female present.

Because we realize how much the pursuit of robotics has affected our lives, we've sought to extend the favor to female youth at the Ann Richards School for Young Women leaders. By exposing them to science and technology at a young age we hope to dispel any lingering misconceptions about estrogen and engineering.


(apologies for the length, this topic is close at heart :) )

Natalie "Gnat" Craik
Project Manager
Chap Robotics
Team 2468...Appreciate! (feel free to smile, we all do!)
Westlake High School
Austin, TX

whschaprobotics@eanes.k12.tx.us

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

On 973, girls are allowed the same privileges as guys.

We had three this season, one was a valued leader and did a lot of hands on work with the robot (assembly, machining, etc...). One did a tad bit of software, but mostly ran scouting and did a pretty good job of it (I have high standards for scouting, and she met them). The final just painted our crate, but she wasn't really that active of a member on the team because of other conflicts.

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

I would take these reponses with a grain of salt. There is a lot more motivation for a team that has girls playing a big role to respond, than teams that have girls forced to be cheerleaders. I'm not saying that these teams are lying, but that the teams that have problems with lack of girls are a lot less likely to respond. So, remember that voluntary samples are filled with biases.

As for 1732, the two years I was on the team, we were made up of just one school, which was an all-male school. This year, I know we included students from the all-femal school, but I was not around to answer the question.

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

Opps...can someone delete this...

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

This is a great read for insight into teams that are developing in this area and what some of the trouble spots are as well as some of the growth, initiative, and acceptance.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=19560

Also, gnat89 is spot on in describing these aspects of her team.
I've had the privilege of visiting them in their working environment, the classroom at Westlake High School, and I've met the team leaders. We'll be seeing some good things coming out of this LSR Rookie All-Star team.

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

I don't think they are asking about lack of girls, but rather what girls do on co-ed teams.

Also, most blatant intentional double post ever. One post at 10:46 (pacific), the "mistake" at 10:48 with no edit tag?

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

I believe they are asking about the roles of girls on teams. Based on the responses from this thread, it seems as if girls have equal roles. However, teams that have girls in less than equal roles are less likely to respond. Someone reading this thread may think FIRST teams have no problem with equality based on the few responses.

I included information about my team (as a side note/afterthought) to decrease the amount of response bias, although it does not answer the question.

The reason for the double post. I posted the first one but forgot to include information about my team. I accidentally hit the 'quote' button instead of the 'edit' button. I added the information about my team and hit post. I then quickly saw the mistake and edited the second post. I am not sure why it doesn't say it was edited; perhaps because it was edited so quickly after it was originally posted.

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

I get that too on occasion.

On another note... HOLY ANCIENT THREAD REVIVAL, BATMAN! The original thread is from 2003.

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

I know that we have had many girls on the team over the years and our team has never had restrictions to what any person is allowed to do. This year, however, we did not have any girls on our team up until a couple of weeks ago when we gained a mentor who graduated in art and design.

When we attended the Milwaukee Regional, I saw many girls coming from so many of the teams. From what I could tell, the girls on those teams participated in almost all of the facets of the team including driving, wiring, mechanical, design, publicity, scouting, etc. This is the same as the guys that are on my team. Their skills range widely and they will find a place on our team wherever they best fit.

I sincerely hope that mentors on all teams are allowing girls to be involved in the same way the guys on the team are allowed to participate and that they aren't pushed toward a part of the competition they aren't necessarily interested in.

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

My team is small (about 12 members, 3 of which are girls), and I'm the Co-Captain and Arm Operator...plus it's my first year on the team.

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

My team is about 20-25 kids (some kids are on/off)
And only three of them are girls.
Renee is one the two team captains- She also heads chairmans, logistics, outreach and media type things
Janelle is our Animation Captain (but she's trying to be familiar with the shop).
And I'm an aprentance (sp?) welder and a help-when-needed-in-the-shop person.

So with our team, the girls kinda fall into the steriotype, but we're working to break that.

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

My team is made up of about 6 students who show up regularly and work. 2 of them are girls. 1 willingly does any job given to her. This does include tedious work on occasion, but that is far from all she does. The other 1 is completely opposite of what one might suspect from "just a girl" (I hate that phrase but it seems to be the mentality of the one who started the thread.) She is the co-captain.(the only reason she is not the captain is purely by her choice.) She does the paperwork (Once again, this is her choice. She did it her first year and decided to continue.) She is the only draftsmen on our team. As well as one of the head designers. She keeps track of the bot to make sure everything is coming along.

So, in conclusion... The girls that are hardworking are too busy to sit still and answer your questions. That is why you only found one type of girl in your survey.

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

Team 2429 has a total of two girls out of twenty or so total members. However, one of them (me!) is the main driver and the other is one of our most dedicated members. (We don't really have official positions on our team; everyone does what they can.) We're a rookie team, so all of this will be subject to change next year, hopefully.

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

On our team there is usually an equal split between girls and guys. This year about 1/3 of the team is composed of girls.

When it comes to being an officer on our team (president, vice president PR/Marketing, Vice President Manufacturing, treasurer, secretary) there is always at least one girl in one of those roles. This year I was our team's president, our Vice President of PR/Marketing was a girl, as were our treasurer and secretary.

We have also had, and continue to have females work in all three of our team's departments. This includes PR/Marketing, Manufacturing, and Animation.

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

Last year (our first year) we had 18 team members and 3 were girls. Two sort of fell into the stereotype, one more than the other. One pretty much did the awards entries, one was a mascot and scout. I didn't really want to do the paperwork and volunteered for electrical. I ended up learning inventor, building the electrical panel, riveting (not pop rivets, real rivets) our ramp, vice president, and ended up as one of the team leaders. I started off kind of shy, not really sure how to be a real leader on the team, but I feel like I have grown so much!

As a senior now, we have about 30 students on the team, and still only 3 girls (we lost one due to the time commitment and gained one new one). One is still the mascot, but does a great job and really enjoys it and tries to help out as much as she can in the shop. The new one started to follow the stereotype and did the photography and posters, but we got her to do the majority of the soldering, and I expect her to help with electrical some next year. I started to take some more leadership, as well as taking on some of the writing things. I felt that I shouldn't be afraid of fallng into this "stereotype", because a leader would help with the writing, and that's what I wanted to do. I wrote our business plan for my senior project for school and have worked with a lot of the younger students to make sure that they are ready to become leaders as this year is the first time we will be graduating any students. I taught a freshman the electronics (I actually found a useful freshman! :ahh: :yikes: ), I was the first to learn how to work our new mill, I worked very hard on our Chairman's award presentation, I served as a part of the pit crew and drive team (robocoach/field checklist person) as well as working on some fundraising, a small amount of scouting work, and a few other things as well.

Two of the girls on our team are seniors. We want more girls on our team, but our school is already about 70% male or more becuase we are a math/science/technology/aviation school and girls just don't seem as interested. We are trying to solve this problem on both the level of the school, and the team. I shy away from going up to girls and saying "just becuase you are a girl doesn't mean you can't do math and science" because if someone said that to me, I would just think they are crazy.

Deep down I think that many of us just abide by the stereotypes but deny that they are there on the outside. It's become a silent stereotype. Nobody walks around saying "you can't do that because you're a girl" anymore, but it's still there. Maybe an attitude, and it could be partially the girls' fault to. I don't know what can be done about it, but it is still there. And I wish it weren't.

It doesn't affect me or what I do, but I see it affect the girls around me. Even the other two on my team. I've talked to them about it, but I don't know how to make them understand. If you go right out and say it, to anyone, they'll just become defensive and you won't accomplish anything. It's a problem.

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

This topic is something that I get asked a lot by people that don't really understand FIRST. My team is about 30 kids and we have 8 girls. About 5 of those girls are the PR people/cheerleaders, but they're still important. The girls on our team can do anything they want as long as they put the initiative in and try. This year I'm the human player and also the team welder. I'm also learning to wire so that next year when a lot of our boys graduate, I can take over.

While I do try to learn all the building and the mechanical stuff like the boys, I try to put my "girly" spin on things too. I actually rhinestoned my human player remote and the competition team's safety glasses, which we have gotten many compliments on :)

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

Our team of 32 has 8 girls on it, each of us is heavily involved.

During this build season: five girls are on a mechanical group (prototyping and machining), two are on electrical, and one is a programmer.

Before and after build season we work in public relations, media, web design, uniforms and scouting.

At the competitions, we do cheer a lot, but girls are also involved in systems checks of our robot, and any adjustments we need to make. :)

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

Well on my team the roles the girls have are earned. However, we do feel like sometimes guys take over so we recently had an all-girls team at the Los Angeles Regional. We left our boys at home and it was awesome. Our girls got to do every single job. We got to drive the robot and we also had to fix it everytime we broke it because there was no one else who would do it for us. I had the opportunity to be on the drive team and ever since then I can't leave the position!! Even when we are with the boys!! So I recommend that every team give the chance to the girls to perform hte different jobs on a team in order for them to realize if FIRST is for them or not. :)

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

Wildstang has women in any role and has always welcomed women on the team. We have had an all women electrical crew, women on the mechanical crew and this year both driver and manipulator are women. However, if you want a real look at a great, all women team, you should contact Team 2177 The Robettes from Mendotta Heights, MN. This team was part of the finalist alliance in Minnesota and they are an awesome team. Everyone that I talked to knew tons about the robot, so inspection was really cool. Each of them is excited about the team and the drive team is engaged and knows what they want. Every team should look to the Robettes for guidance, they are an exceptional team.

Re: Q&A Discuss: Girls on Teams
 

Well, on my team, girls are as much a part of the project as any guy is. Our electrical system was almost entirely done by a girl on our team. Much of our scouting and management is done by girls, and of course, they all get their hands into the robot and build a part of it.

One of our drivers is also a girl, and if you ask her, I'd suspect that she would say that being a girl hasn't held her back at all.

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The funny thing is that two years ago in 2006 I was the ONLY girl on our team. (Boy was THAT interesting)

But this year almost half our team is comprised of females and the change is wonderful. Girls on the team range in all kinds of interests. Some do photography, some do communications and safety, but most of them are involved in SOME aspect of the robot.

In fact our entire electrical section this year was done by ONLY girls. Talk about Girl POWER!! (Hahaha very punny!!)

I can't imagine things being any differently and as a senior and the last original girl member of the team I couldn't be happier to see these changes. :P

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As Katie said below there are only 3 girls out of about 20 students on team 1675.

Each of the girls put in 100% effort and does what ever needs to be done on the team. The boys have never said you can't do this because you are a girl, and if the girls want to work in the shop then they are able to with no problems.

This year there were no constant girls in the pit, Katie was between scouting and the pit, Janelle was head of scouting, and I did media or chairmans depending on the regional.

We may fall into a stereotype, but that would only be if we sit down and let the boys tell us we can't do something, and if they did that.. well it wouldn't go over very well with any of us. :rolleyes: