HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

On last year team, we had 4 females. This year team, we had 2 females. Next year team, we may have no females. I want to know how to get more female involment in our robotics program? How does your team do it? What advice can you offer.

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

These threads may be helpful:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...emale+robotics
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...emale+robotics
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...emale+robotics

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

There are a LOT of things a girl can bring to a FIRST team, and you just need to show them that. Try putting up posters around your school (if possible), or maybe hold an information/ open house night where you can attract some girls and show them how great being a part of your team is. Also, there's an organization called RCU (Robot Chicks Union), which was started to help girls adjust to and feel like a part of their team. You can try contacting Julia Magoolia for more information on that.

Good luck!

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

Tell them its a great way to meet guys.

(Just kidding!)

Honestly, post flyers around school and whatnot that show that theres more to robotics than power tools. Ex: If they start out on a finance committee, theres a big chance they might get interested in building as well. This works pretty well for our team, and recruiting is hard in an all-girls school.

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

Well Freddy, let me see if I can supply you with some info. The easiest way I think would get more females involved in robotics is to take the females you have this year and have then go around to underclassmen and have them spread the word of FIRST in a female's perspective. Have the girls target the girls and guys for....guys. Maybe have them go to your middle school and have them talk to the 8th graders. Now you can have guys along for the ride too for this is a good way for recruiting others. Another good way to get more participation is to hold workshops or demos. The biggest most important thing for you guys right now is to get the females to recruit. Anything you guys can think of to get more involvement will be a great start for the new year. Now I don't know how you team does it, but this is the same method that the Tigertrons use for recruiting. I hope I could give you some guidance on getting more females for your team. Good luck! and thanks for MCing the PARC. It was a great time! ;)

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

Talk to your previous females and find out why they aren't continuing (unless they're seniors)..Have those females do some recruiting around school.. Hold recruitment meetings at school, like any other extracurricular meeting does. Advertise that along with building a robot (mech, elec, software, etc) that the team also includes marketing and communications, fundraising, jouranlism (depending on newsletter type things you do, or you could get started, etc), websites, animation. Make sure they're aware it's not just this geeky robot building session. Make sure you tell them fun travel is involved!

I'm sure people on your team have friends that are girls. Talk to them, encourage them, tell them to just swing by. Do you do things in the fall? Do you go to off-season competitions you can invite them to? What community activities do you have? The key is to get them hooked prior to build season. Build season will be busy enough, and it may be difficult to familiarize new students with everything then.

Send out recruitment postcards to all the high school parents that appeal to them and getting their student a potential career in technology, and especially scholarships!! That might entice the parents to bring a kid to the meeting. Make school announcements. Post flyers. DO DEMOS IN SCHOOL. Set up recruitment meetings in the fall and have material to discuss with the students and parents when they attend. Show them videos and pictures of competition, and make sure you get the excitment across in your presentation.

Once you do get some interest, I would suggest holding some "girls night" sessions in the fall to introduce them to equipment, tools, FIRST as a whole, etc early on. Have only girls and a few mentors (maybe even 1-2 student team leaders) attend. They may feel less intimidated than when 30 guys are standing around and jumping into the work. It worked well for our team. They could make mistakes without feeling embarassed, and they weren't intimidated and tried new things. When a couple girls are outnumbered by a lot of guys, it's not as easy for them to be aggressive. Make sure the guys on your team are inviting and encouraging and friendly.

And, do you have Lego League teams in the area? Target them before they enter high school and make sure they know about your team.

Recruitment can be tough - keep at it, be creative.

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

For our team the major way we get girls involved is through friends. Last year we had two girls (one of which graduated), but this year we had 5 or 6...(though they're all graduating - so I guess we have the same problem as you...). If one of their friends is involved and tells them what a great thing it is their more likely to listen to them than to read a poster hanging around the school or come to a meeting. Plus they'll know someone and feel more comfortable. :)

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

I personally think the best way is to get them to come in groups. Most girls (14ish) joined our club because they had a friend who was also a girl in our club. Girls attract other girls. Just ask girls you know personally to join.

They will become interested after watching a couple of old intense matches you have on tape somewhere. And if they say that it is too hard for them to do, let them know that it is a learning process and stuff gets easier with time.

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

this is a big concern i see all the time on teams...there are many ways to reach out to girls..simply target them...the RCU i know would love to help in any way possible.. we have a few things being created to help existing girls and hopefully we'll be able to address this concern.

if you guys are friends with girls and know they would be interested talk to them...and let them understand that they can do things...one problem there is that guys go ahead and build the bot on many teams and the girls get stuck with the paper jobs. if they want to do that fine but encourage them that they can do anything.


PM if you want to know anything about the RCU. I'm captain of the Southern Florida Chapter.

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

Talk to the girls on the team currently and find out what made them want to join. I know there are guys on the team that have at least ONE female friend. Drag them to a meeting. Just make sure you don't ONLY talk about video games. If building is not their forte or something they're interested in make sure you show them all the OTHER aspects of a FIRST team. I'd be more than willing to share my experiences on a FIRST team that started with just ONE girl (me), and now has 8 I believe. :)

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

Simply asking around in your classes (especially science, math, and tech ed) can generate an awful lot of interest. Remember, not every girl does downhill ski racing or basketball all winter long!
Also, as Amy and a few others mentioned, demonstrations are an excellent idea. I first heard about robotics when I was in 5th grade - being from a small parochial school, seeing a girl that had graduated a few years before, attended the public high school, and had become a leader on the robotics team was very exciting for both my friend Molly (our electrical captain) and myself.
Once you get girls on the team, tell them exactly what our only female mentor told me: "When something looks neat, just elbow the guys out of the way and give it a hand yourself." They need to know that, just because there may be way more guys than girls, they too can make a huge difference if they are persistent. It always seems intimidating at first, make sure that if you have a weekly team meeting, it is open to everyone and be sure to encourage the girls that do show up.
From what I recall, there have always been at least 3 girls on the team, this year, we were blessed to have 7, but that doesn't mean that there isn't any room for more!

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

Keep in mind that as there are different learning styles, there are different communications styles as well. Although this is a generalization studies have shown that males respond to action, so a robot demo or video might capture their interest. Females tend to respond to verbal communication, so having a friendly, outgoing member of the team there to talk about the program might be the way to reach the female population.

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

One of the issues my team has dealt with is being seen as "genius geeks," which scares a lot of people away. Let people know that you don't need to know how to weld, or pi to the thirtieth decimal, or five programming languages. And talk to people! If people don't know about where and when the team meets, they won't join - socializing is a huge part of recruitment. Last year, we had three girls; this year, we have seven (on a team of twenty or so).

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

Yes, it is a problem. I'm on 1138, and we have only about 3 "full time" girls on the team. Girls don't realize that there is so much they can do, other than actual mechanical stuff. They can be scouts, human players, programmers, or anything else. The best thing, i'd say is to recruit more freshmen. Freshmen are new to the school and they are looking for a place to belong in high school. What's a better place than robotics? They can learn stuff about robots and meet new ppl. Our team advertises at open houses, "club nades", and other school events that show incoming freshmen what the school is about. Girls are very good at raising money for the team too. They can be the treasurers, secretaries, or public relations. They can be the spirit leaders, and can think of ways to promote the team.

k, i hope more girls will be interested soon.

Good luck!

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

Our team usually runs about 40% female. We don't really campaign to get girls on the team. It happens naturally because of our setup. we do the following things.

1) We have a strong female role model as a coach. And a strong female college age mentor.
2) We always place females in leadership roles.
3) We have a zero tolerance policy for any sort of male/female stereotyping
4) We encourage new kids that aren't initially interested in construction to be on the build team.
5) We encourage both male and female students to recruit through a network of friends (our best resource)

All of these things combine to create an environment where girls feel safe and valued, with lots of potential for growth. They also have many female peers and mentor role models to aspire too.

or maybe..... its just our team name (Miss Daisy) that does it! :D

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

Our team had two girls this year; another was supposed to be on the team but came to a build session and got scared away. I was contacted because one of the mentors asked around at school to see if any girls were interested, and my name came up. I dragged a friend along so I wouldn't be the only girl on the team, and she loved it and stayed. I've talked about it so much to my friends, I think a few of them may join next year. And I think the girl who was scared away during build season has agreed to come and help with the website next year. Sarah and I are recruiting some of our friends who are coming up to the high school from 8th grade next year, so I think we'll have a few more girls. Talking to them seems like the best way to get more girls, but be careful not to scare them!! :)

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

I would have to agree with everything the people above said. Here are a few of my suggestions

1) Advertise creatively. For example, this year, we made some funny posters and put them all around school (girls bathroom would be a good spot, but you would of course, want a girl on the team to put them in there, :) )

2) Make a video or hand out explaining what robotics actually is. This year we made a humorous video called "10 Common misconceptions about the robotics team" It was a hit.

3) After your creative recruitment efforts, bring girls who show up to meetings on the team to your workshop, and then ask them to use the power tools (with help/instructions/proper safety of course, at first). I remember being so scared to use the bench saw, but after I did I felt like I had just constructed a 3 story mansion. Using a power tool is quite empowering, no matter what gender you are.

Hope this helps; good luck!

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

We dont have alot of girls on our team. we have like about 9-10. Every year is about the same number of girls on the team. We just try to advertise WildStang as best as we can. I tell me friends about it that are girls. Im pretty good at explaining it to them and what its all about but the best way that girls will get invovled is if you just explain it to them so they get what FIRST is all about and stuff. but idk lol
-Court-

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

Our girl to guy ratio is poor at best, and I understand all of you. Although we do have a fair amount of females, there are only TWO of us in structre, and most of the females are in finance and public relations. No offence to those departments, but as they usually don't stay for longer then the first thirty minutes... we have perhaps four girls max among twenty guys.

This year, I was also the only freshman female to stay with the team after the first month, save, one other, who left us mid year for Handball.

Yeah. Our school is going to try for girls too, but I doubt I can take another 'battlebots?' question.

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

Just make sure there are some cute guys on the team. ;) j/k

You could contact local clubs/organizations for girls (such as the Girl Scouts), and try to get some of them involved. You can even set up some kind of presentation for them to show them what robotics is. Girl Scouts are really into learning about career opportunities, and would probably love to get more girls into technological fields, so I bet you would get some co-operation there. :)

Like santosh said, they are also more likely to come in groups. Girls can be shy about joining a guy-dominant group like robotics, but if there are other girls they have more of a chance.

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

This is definately a good idea. I don't know when it started or why, but people post flyers INSIDE bathroom stalls at our school. This kinda gets to me (especially the campaign posters...who wants faces staring at them in the bathroom?) but at the same time, it DOES kinda make people pay attention to you....

Another of our great recruitment ideas. This video not only featured Liz running in the school parking lot and phony anti-battlebots segments, but me dressed up as a complete geek and pschopath drilling holes in things to get out anger over grades.

One word of advice on this: don't call it a girls meeting. or anything like that. if you have a meeting to learn how to use powertools that just happens to be geared towards girls, great. but don't say that its for girls. i personally find this incredibly degrading, as i can use powertools just as well as any guy out there, and i think other girls might too.

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

right, I mean when you show the whole team how to use the power tools and such, be sure to invite everyone, even those who claim they're not interested in construction. I wouldn't know what it would be like to hold a coed meeting, but I would think that it would be most effective if you maybe paired up a new member with an old member and had them give "personal tours" and show them how to use the power tools. We did that this year; we gave all the new members a "big sister" on the team.

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

i would also like to add.. if there are teams with females participation near by ask them if they would come over and help you all out. it's more comfortable to hear what another person of the same sex has to say. if you have photos try to include images of girls working, get other teams images if you need to be.

good luck.. if i think of anything else i'll be surely to add. this is a very important topic for the FIRST community as a large and even the world. girls have to realize they can do anything, once they do they'll be successful for sure...

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

i think that the greatest way to get more girls on the team, is to have the girls left on your team tell stories to the other girls about the trips and how fun it is to be on the team, thats how i got in..=p oh and get the guys to talk to the girls about it too, -_^

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

Across North America, DeVry's student population is about 25% female. Of those women, the majority are enrolled in business administration.

To encourage more women to study science and technology, we regularly host young women in science and technology days, and offer a HS-oriented workshop called HerWorld. HerWorld emphasizes the fact that careers in technology are rewarding and just as fun as careers in fields traditionally thought of as "girl" fields like teaching, nursing and social work.

Anything we can do to encourage young women to participate in FIRST would be excellent. I think the key (as others have mentioned) is getting the prospective girl to see FRC in action. Video can work too... The excitement factor should lead to interest...if the female in question is a good fit for FIRST that is.

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

I think a lot of what is holding girls back is that they are afraid of 'oh no, what if i don't get this and i look dumb' or they feel like they don't have any experience, or a social stigma perhaps (me, im proud of my geek status. geeks are cool :D ) but I think we just need to help them get over that. As for looking dumb...I cannot count the number of times I have set myself up to 'look dumb', but I learned so much....and I had lots of fun too!

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

It is a really great idea to have girls invite their other female friends to join. I know I always attempt to persuade all my non-robotics friends, guy or girl, to join the team. One of the main reasons I actually joined was because I was in gifted class, and both the teachers of that class are mentors on our team, so much of the time spent in that class was helping with robotics.
Our team actually does not have that much of a problem with getting girls to join. We have a pretty good blend of both girls and guys on our team, so it has never really been an issue with us. But if you do have trouble, try to get your computer teachers to talk with some of their advanced classes. If people are taking an advanced computer class, they must like technology in some way. If you specifically wanted to target girls to join, you could tell them about fundraising, accounting, or even start a scrapbook. They will eventually get into the building part once they see how much fun it is. I especially know that a group of all guys could probably not make a nice scrapbook, no offense. Hope this helps give you some ideas!

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

We have maybe 5 or 6 females on the team. I, and maybe on other actually work on the bot.

Girls love to cheer. Why not appeal to the cheerleader in us all? Most of the femme's on our team handle "team spirit", communnication, and our events. That leaves the guys, and me, to build the bot and get whatever needs to get done, done.

Personally. I've always been a female that enjoys techy stuff, computers, programming, and getting down and dirty. You need to find the kind of girls that don't mind getting a little greasy, that don't mind chipping a nail for the sake of the bot, but most importantly... Will enjoy themselves in the process. Don't go after the girls that go to school just for the social scene, etc. Go after the ones that seem mildly interested. Use the buddy system ^_^ Gets a whole clique of chicks to join!

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

well, there are three girls on our team, one is able to drive the robot... I on the other hand... and not alowed to really touch it... i almost drove last years into a wall...(never driven a controler before) but last year was also my freshman year. and one thing that really upset me was that in the fall we had another girl on the team, her and i were the cheerign section and leaders of the design and creativity portions of the competition, her and i could be hear cheering clearly over two bands, and three sets of cheer leaders(not to mention the SOUND SYSTEM that was in kenasaws tent... the 50 or so screaming team members and the anouncer) :ahh: but her mom made her quit because it wasn't "what girls should be doing" ... i wanted to go up to her mom and say"if this is something girls don;t do, what am I?????!?!?!?!? a DUCK?! :eek: " this year will be my first FIRST competition(my grades were no where near where they needed to be) but this year i am really looking forward to it... and our team has been GAINING girls year by year, and we are trying to start robot teams in the elm and middle schools in our area to try and spark girls intrest before its destoyied by steriotypes of "girls do that" "guys only" :] its really sad... lucyly.. i'm imune mwahahaha fear my thick non-girl ness :p YOU GO GIRLS!!!!!!! :D

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

[quote=sure_smile]I think a lot of what is holding girls back is that they are afraid of 'oh no, what if i don't get this and i look dumb' or they feel like they don't have any experience, ..........QUOTE]

The message from all these postings is very clear......if you know of any female friends who show an interest....bring them along with you to the meetings.....girls tend to think that boys know all about tools, machines, etc.....but this is not necessary so.....also encourage them to do things .....not just administrative or publicity stuff ....and let them know that it is okay to ask questions.....

And ladies...talk about your involvement in the elementary schools or middle schools.....especially if you are mentoring a FLL team.....you need to let the younger girls know that it is "cool" to be a FIRST'er.....unfortunately....we are not the front cover of any teen magazines as the cool image :(

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

Get teachers to advertise robotics to their classes. Talk to the teachers you have... they know their students well and probably can convince some of them to join. It worked for me! :P
Oh, plan B... Drag them to the meeting, feed them something, lock the doors, then get them interested in one of the groups.

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

Sadly, we wish we could have girls but our school is an all boys school :eek:

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

Yea we go to an all-guys school. So i guess this doesn't apply to us. But, I am sure there are plenty of girls at your respective schools, that would be willing to sign up. I liken it to the amount of female gamers in the world. They are out there, you just have to find them.

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

We have several girls on our team, 547, but there are only two of us who are involved in anything except spirit or animation. I programm and we have a girl who builds and does CAD. None of the other girls really seem interested in working directly on the robot.

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

Some of the girls at my school say that they're not good enough, or that they have a bad relationship with power tools. I said that we were all like that our freshman year. Actually, the girls on my team have a funny sense of humor saying that thet're now a "commodity" because they joined robotics. We do have a bunch of girls on our team, but they're in the PR department. Most of them don't want to do engineering, but I want them to. In engineering there are only 4 girls.

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

Some girls are afraid of technology. Guys are "supposed" to be "better" and so it is intimidating.

Show them that its not all about technology, and then when you hook them, show them that the tech stuff really is fun! :)

In general just get them to realize that its more than just a robot, its fundraising, spirit, teamwork, and FUN! :)

It seemed to work for me.

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

well, there are more guys on our team than girls, but there are about 5 or 6 girls on the team this year. I think you might want to advertise the fact that girls should also be involved in robotics and that it's not just a guy thing. Also, let them believe that it's more than just nerdiness, it's valuable experience, and they're missing out on so much by not joining just becase they think it's a guy thing or that it's too "nerdy". :cool:

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

We have 4 girls on our team (not including the teacher sponsor), though the 2 returning members have not been able to do nearly as much due to jobs. The other 2 are on programming and electrical, and typically show up more and do more than alot of the guys do.

We just recruit all around the school and tell people there is more to do than just build a robot, and we typically have at least 4 girls every year, usually on programming and electrical. If we could finally get a PR team decently organised we'd have double that at least.

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

I think in order to get more girls on your team tell them about how much fun FIRST is. It's not all about building robots. Highlights points about where you travel, who you meet, what you do at competitions, how much you learn, and just the amazing experience in general. The things you learn in FIRST will be with you the rest of your life. Tell them that they don't have to want to be an engineer to be on robotics. Last year in my first year in FIRST, I didn't know much about machinery and tools and I decided to be on the fundraising team (at that time I either wanted to be a lawyer or an accountant). I saw how hard the girls on the technical teams worked and then at the competitions I saw how amazing all these robots were. This year I'm now part of the technical build team and FIRST has inspired me to become an engineer which I had never even thought about being.

So to sum it all up: just highlight points that you think will spark their interest. Tell them that they can do things like fundraising and public relations. Next year some of them might help out with the building :)

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

We have 12+ girls out of about 42 members(I'm not sure the exact count because I know we got a few new member since the list I have for our website was created) One of them has been on the team for 8 years and she is only a freshman(her older brother was on the team a couple of years ago and she has continued her involvement). The rest are on either their first or second year.

I'm not sure why most of them joined, but we had 4 girls on the team last year and I think they talked their friends into joining. We also showed off our robot at back to school night and had a few of our female members there to encourage people to join, so I think that seeing that it wasn't only a guy thing helped. I also convinced a few of my friends to join after bugging them for 3 years. (I don't suggest trying this because it doesn't work too well.)

On the team the girls are pretty evenly spread across all of our groups(sadly programming is lacking, but we are still recruiting). One of things I have run into in trying to convince girls to join is the fact that they think that all FIRST does is build robots. I think that showing everyone at your school(not only the girls) that FIRST does more that cut metal might increase the membership.

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

Our team is always at least half female. We've always had female presidents but the building roles and similar leadership positions have always been filled by guys. We can't seem to interest girls enough to build robots, I'm not sure how it happens this way...

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

Last year we only had 3 girls, 1 graduated. But this year like magic we had so many girls that we had to create a whole new team of them. Now there are about 10-20 girls on the girl team and about 2-3 on the main team.

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

We were just counting today - 7 girls, 20 guys. Which is a big change, since last year they were half and half.

Re: HELP: GIRLS AND ROBOTICS
 

The best way to hook non-FIRSTers in (be they boy, girl, black, white whatever) is to take them to a regional and let them feed off of the concentrated energy flowing free in the arena and catch the bug.
If they can deny FIRST then, then they're just never gonna get it.