Re: Why is it that not many girls are into robotics?
 

Maybe I should just give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant 'shopping for gears online'.

You know, the team you report to be on was started by a girl. That same girl drove to make the Boilermaker Regional that your campus is supporting a reality. In fact, there's many girls on your team that do a lot for 461. You should think about that.

Show a girl how to use a wrench, and she'll put those skills to use for a lifetime. Hand it to her and tell her she's probably better off shopping, and she'll clonk you over the head with it, do your pneumatics system, and CAD the robot.

If you are not embarassed by your own comment, your entire team, including the boys, are probably embarassed enough for you. I suggest you do both yourself and your team a huge favor and delete your post, and rethink what you said.

Re: Why is it that not many girls are into robotics?
 

This is quite true on 1293...well, except that none of the girls as far as I know CAD, and we aren't planning on pneumatics...but other than that, it's quite true.

I can think of five girls on the team off the top of my head on 1293...one handles the more artistic parts of the team (our crate will be stylish this year!), one programs like mad, and the other three work on the robot itself.

And in their individual areas, more often than not, they can run circles around me. (This is partially why the robot is running as well as it has, and 1293's logo remains free of stick figures.)

Re: Why is it that not many girls are into robotics?
 

You know - it's ironic how off-topic, yet so on-topic this comment actually is.

First, the work and effort in this organization extends far beyond solely playing with computers and working on robots.

Second - It's mentality and attitude like this that can discourage girls - or anyone else for that matter - from getting involved. To benefit oneself, if one is going to be involved in this organization, one should get both those items in check.

Moving right along....

Re: Why is it that not many girls are into robotics?
 

My team has way more girls then guys :D , and our school has equal number of male:female. However, it does sometimes seems like the guys understand more about the engineering aspect, on my team anyways. I am not saying this in an insulting way, i am myself a girl and i am head my team's electrical group. I am just stating an observation that might be part of the answer for some.

Re: Why is it that not many girls are into robotics?
 

Here's an interesting article that somewhat related:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science...ain/index.html

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(CNN) -- It's an argument that's as old as it is contentious: that male and female brains work differently.

It's also spawned countless self-help books (think "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus") and bland jokes about women being unable to read maps, or men never asking for directions.

It's a brave expert who'll chart a course through these controversial waters.

But that hasn't stopped Michael Gurian, psychologist and author of "What Could He Be Thinking?".

He believes there are about a hundred structural differences that have been identified between the male and female brain.

"Men, because we tend to compartmentalize our communication into a smaller part of the brain, we tend to be better at getting right to the issue," he said.

"The more female brain (will) gather a lot of material, gather a lot of information, feel a lot, hear a lot, sense a lot," he said.

Scientists say males have more activity in mechanical centers of the brain, whereas females show more activity in verbal and emotional centers.

The differences can be noticed from early childhood, Gurian said, such as when an adult gives a child a doll.

"That doll becomes life-like to that girl, but you give it to a two-year-old boy and you are more likely, not all the time, but you are more likely than not to see that boy try to take the head off the doll," he said.

"He thinks spatial-mechanical. He's using the doll as an object".

To find out why these differences exist, scientists have taken voyages deep inside the gray matter using MRI scans.

The scans show that in most women, the corpus callosum area, which handles communication between the brain's two "hemispheres", is larger.

In layman's terms, it means that the two sides of the female brain "talk" better to each other -- which could explain why studies show women tend to multi-task better.

On the other hand, the scans show men tend to move information more easily within each hemisphere.

It all boils down to genes, according to Dr. Marianne Legato Partnership for Gender Specific Medicine Columbia University.

Women are born with two X chromosomes, and men with an X and a Y.

"And on that Y chromosome are at least 21 unique genes unique to males which control many of the body's operations down to the level of the cells," Dr Legato said.

She also said those genetic differences explain other differences, like why men can drink more alcohol than women without becoming intoxicated.

"Women do not have the enzyme in their stomach that degrades alcohol which men have," she said.

Unfortunately it doesn't explain why some men leave the toilet seat up, or some women can't take out the garbage.

CNN's Elizabeth Cohen contributed to this report.

Re: Why is it that not many girls are into robotics?
 

for the record, the last 2 years Team 166 has been prodominently made up of girls and with an average team size of 30 or so thats not bad. funny that by reputation we builg big tough powerhouse robots rather than elegant things though, interesting

Re: Why is it that not many girls are into robotics?
 

We need more girls on our team. Right now, we only have one, and she only joined because she is the sister of an older member who no longer attends. She does PR stuff. I would really like to see more female members, especially those interested in the technical stuff.

You girls out there: any suggestions as to how we could try to recruit more?

Jonathan

Re: Why is it that not many girls are into robotics?
 

What a silly, silly comment, and I think I'm going to pretend you were trying to make a funny so that it doesn't leave me with a less than pleasant impression of you and your team. If you go to a co-ed school and your team has no girls than your team is not doing enough outreach to your school. If you have a team with girls but those girls are not contributing, than your team is not doing a good job inspiring them.

Unfortunately, stereotypes, like urban legends, come in to existence because there is some kind of truth behind them. And while I, myself, can't prove it, I do believe guys and gals brains work differently (but always with exceptions). Add that difference to how society treats each gender and it gets even messier. One girl on our team admits that math is not her strong suit, that she's much better in English. However, she loves to build things. When she joined our team last year she knew what a hammer was and a screwdriver, but not much else. Because we have mentors who are eager to encourage all students and patient enough to work with those who, despite a lack of knowledge, really want to learn, this girl made our Pit team on her rookie year. If your mentors (and to a large extent, veteran team members) are too busy and stressed to make time for students like this, your team will lose a lot of potential talent, both male and female.

Heidi

Re: Why is it that not many girls are into robotics?
 

I myself am a guy so I cant really answer this question. But yeah, maybe there should be more girls but then in the future,theres going to be more competition when you try to get a job. hehe :p

Re: Why is it that not many girls are into robotics?
 

Here's a mechanical engineering student from RPI's perspective of women engineers. RPI is a prodominantly engineering school with 81% male occupancy. This has forever been an issue at the Institute, but has been battled by campaigns to bring more women to this fine school. As far as my team is concerned... Of 18 college mentors, 2 of them are women, and they are among the hardest working, and well versed members of our team. One of them, Erin is a TA at the student machine shop on campus and is always answering questions like "how the heck do i fit this blasted thing on the lathe" or "Is it bad if i'm drill pressing something without the proper clamp, and it picks the piece up starts spinning it in really fast circles?" The other, Lesli has been vital in designing AND fabricating of the gear boxes and telescoping arm system. Both of them are huge assets to the team. All jokes aside (even though i did laugh a little at the shopping sub team joke) The drawing board, and the machine shop can't tell the sex of the operator. I've never seen something that a woman has asked a man to do in any part of this project (except for short little Erin not being tall enough to reach the top of the vertical mill.... ). Women add a lot to our team, and we are happy to have them around.

Re: Why is it that not many girls are into robotics?
 

was told there wasn't a lot of girls joining us do to our large amount of testosterone (i hope i spelt that right, maybe spell check....) cause some of the guys say stuff that end up scaring off the girls, plus the lower classmen get scared when we are arguing about stuff like designs, so they won't put their ideas out there, testosterone seems to be the root of problems, as i have been told :confused:

Re: Why is it that not many girls are into robotics?
 

Not having any to having 100% more? ;)

Re: Why is it that not many girls are into robotics?
 

Just the other day I was looking for my multimeter and the (darn) arrogant group of testerone molecules started hasslin' me. Sheesh... why can't they pick on someone there own size!

Don't blame your problems on chemicals. ;)

Re: Why is it that not many girls are into robotics?
 

Elegance is powerful. You should see our robot this year, it looks like avant garde architecture mixed with a suspension bridge.

Re: Why is it that not many girls are into robotics?
 

Being a girl, I find that most girls don't join FIRST because they are afraid of what other people may say because they are a girl and advancing for the future, but their friends aren't, and the teen years are a few of the most influential years of a girls life, especailly when it comes to the social role they play in high school drama. But the same also goes for males. Our team has 6 females on it, not including mentors(which is about 3 more).