Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

You've said A & B, but haven't linked them. This still doesn't provide evidence even implying that FIRST wants teams to learn to work with a diverse group of people. It's not in FIRST's mission at all.

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

Agreed, I don't see it in here:

Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership. (http://www.usfirst.org/aboutus/content.aspx?id=34)

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

My mistake, I suppose I should judge the mission off of the mission statement, and not what I remember Dean saying at the kickoffs I have attended.

However a part of the mission statement is "foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership." Firstly the word 'including' implies that those three skill are not all FIRST wants to encourage, but rather any skill that will give a FIRST student a heads up in the real world. Secondly, students who come from a diverse team(however rare) will tend to have better communication skills,because good communication skills are needed to work in any group, and better communication tend to be needed to work in a group of people who simply don't think alike.

That being said I still do feel that Exclusive teams are counterproductive to the FIRST mission. However as I said before discouraging the existence of such teams would take away the chance for students to learn all of other valuable skills they would learn on their team. So I feel it would be more counterproductive to FIRST to discourage the existence of exclusive teams.

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

If you can find the transcript of where Dean has said that exclusive or all-girls teams are wrong, I'd be interested to re-read it. I've listened intently to every one of Dean's speeches for 16 years, and I never heard anything discouraging exclusive or all girls teams. I remember him saying at champs (maybe 2 years ago) teams without mentors are missing out... but I never remember anything about exclusive teams.

To a point made earlier... there ARE all male teams. And just like all female teams, often the reason is because of school. An all boys catholic school simply isnt going to permit girls on the team. Just like an all girls school won't have boys on the team.

I met such an all girls team this weekend at the CT regional. I spoke with their three seniors at the alumni networking luncheon. They were from an all girls school in NYC. One of the girls was going to attend Harvey Mudd in the fall. My jaw dropped when I heard that. It was my dream school... they accept 1400 out of 14,000 applicants and in 4 years you get something like 4 engineering degrees. Anyways, this quiet girl from an all girls FIRST team was going there. Her two friends were both more artsy and very likely never would have touched anything science or techy if it weren't for the FIRST team. They were exposed to something they never would have tried, and very likely they wouldnt have touched the robot had it been a co-ed team. But because it was all girls, and they had only 3 seniors, they were all very involved. I was impressed, and convinced that any style of FIRST team can do wonders for its students.

And Im not sure where you get this, the Trafalgar Castle School is an all girls school. If you are talking about 1075 (Sinclair Secondary School - a different school), I don't believe the two are affiliated, just both happen to be listed from Whitby ON (though I could be wrong). I doubt these teams were created to offset eachother, I believe they are just a result of the makeup of the schools they are centered in.

For those of you "against" all girls teams... I would highly suggest you go talk with some of these girls that are on these teams. Contrast that with some of the girls on your own team or other teams, and you might see the value that both types of teams provide.

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

Firstly, I personally disagree with all exclusive teams, not just all girls teams, as they are no worse that a team that is all boys.

Secondly, I never said that Dean said All Girls teams are bad, but rather that I seem to remember that he has said FIRST is to inspire innovation in youth, and teach people how to work in todays growing diverse society. Excluding people of a different demographic creates less chance for major disagreements, and less opportunity to learn how to deal with such situations.

I also understand that many all boys, or all girls teams are started at a school where it is all boys or all girls. However I also disagree with all boys or all girls schools regardless of their involvement in FIRST.

I have said multiple times now, that I understand why FIRST should not discourage exclusive teams. If FIRST begins to discourage such teams then people involved on those teams will lose the chance to learn all of the other important skills they could have gained.

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

Clearly you've never worked with an all girls team :) Our team has had some major disagreements over the past 5 years, and the students have learned a lot from them. The biggest was probably after kickoff in 2008 - the team was completely split 50/50 on what direction to go, and it was a huge, emotional discussion. We helped them learn, however, that there was a middle ground. That they could work towards a compromise that would make everyone happy and we ended up with a great robot that year.

You don't avoid any disagreements by being in an all girls or all boys team. Working with my team, I've come to see that it really doesn't matter what the make up of the team is - same gender, mixed gender, same ethnicity, mixed ethnicity, whatever. In the end, it's all about the engineering process. Sex and ethnicity of your coworkers simply doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is what they are capable of doing, and you judge that on an individual basis. If you are finding major disagreements arising from working with a mixed group, then your group really isn't getting it. They aren't focused on the important aspects of FIRST.

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

You are correct... I find that tends to be true for all male students. :p However, I will admit that I have never worked with an all boys team either.

I understand what you are saying, It is true that anytime you get 2 or more people working together their is potential for a conflict. I suppose that while you may have more conflict and learning experience in a more diverse team, there is still plenty to disagree about and plenty of chances to learn how to deal with such situations.

however, I still do not completely support exclusive teams. As, the people being excluded are missing out on the learning experience simply because of their demographic. So I would like to ask, is it common for exclusive teams to help mentor, ore even start co-ed teams?

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

Lledargo - our team has mentored a few co-ed teams, most notably the Firebears from Roseville HS. In addition to providing any help their rookie year, we've coordinated with them on scouting and had them in to our build space when some of our equipment was useful for them. This year, we even shared a bus with them when heading up to the Lake Superior Regional.

In addition, it's important to keep in mind that most teams are, to some degree, excluding people. Every school team naturally excludes people who don't go to their school, denying any home-schooled children in their district a chance to participate. Likewise, the Robettes, coming from Convent of the Visitation HS (an all-girls catholic school), only accept students from their school. Their "brother school", St. Thomas, has a separate EV car team, but has thus far decided not to be involved in FIRST, preferring to focus on what is already offered.

The fact that the Robettes are an all girls team really doesn't affect how they interact with other teams (although we've seen cases where it affects how other teams interact with them, and not in a positive way). We work with other teams just like anyone else. We have great relations with many teams in the area. This past year, we presented at the annual Minnesota Splash event.

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

There is, thus far, no evidence that any all-male or all-female teams have been formed instead of a "co-ed" team nearby. Consequently, nobody is being excluded or denied an opportunity to participate because of their gender in a manner that is more meaningful than someone that lives in New Jersey being "excluded" from being a member of a new team in Washington.

These teams create new opportunities for students to participate in FIRST programs that did not previously exist because the number of teams continues to grow year over year.

Ignoring all of that -- FIRST does not exist in a bubble. The people you're defending in your argument against exclusion -- males -- are given far greater access to opportunities and encouragement that are similar to what FIRST provides than women are.

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

I apologize for the tangent, but I had to correct this. The TechnoKats team doesn't require that its members attend Kokomo High School. We have an explicit policy that anyone is welcome, both home-schooled and from other area schools that lack an FRC team. All we ask is that a parent be an active participant as well.

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

I haven't been involved with 1766 in a while so I can't say what the rules are currently. But we have always been of the mindset that anyone that wanted to join, could. We actively wanted students from nearby schools to join.(They were reluctant due to the driving distance, but we did succeed with a couple of students.) I imagine if someone from California wanted to be on the team, we would have let them. Admittedly, they would have had limited access to the robot unless they was willing to travel.

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

I'm going to have to jump in and disagree you here. Exclusive teams work with other demographics at competition. Working with people from other demographics that you may disagree with is pretty much the definition of the alliance system for matches, complete with occasionally incompatible goals.

I haven't worked with any of the other all-girls teams (or if I have, I didn't notice they were all girls), but I've been to several competitions with the Robettes. They spend as much time working with other teams as anyone else (and are generally wonderful to work with). The all-girl teams get plenty of exposure to other demographics.

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

This isn't necessarily true. There are a lot of teams in the PA area that have teams that are comprised of students that attend different high schools. My team has had students from other schools. There are a few large teams that I can think of off the top of my head that aren't affiliated with a school and are comprised of a copious number of surrounding high schools. Two teams that I can think of are MOE (from Delaware and the surrounding areas), and Exploding Bacon (from Winter Park, Florida).

If you took a poll of how many teams are one high school, you would be surprised as to how many are actually multiple schools coming together.

Cass

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

False: 1178, D.u.R.T. is primarily from an all boys Catholic high school (De Smet Jesuit High School) but we allow girls in from the other high schools that do not have teams but want to participate. Are there less girls than guys? Yes (3 girls this year on a ~30 member team).

From personal experience, I believe that gender separate teams can actually convince more people to join. (One girl who went to a meeting in the pre-season to see what our team was like hid herself for 15 minutes waiting for the rest of the girls to arrive because she was scared of all the guys. After that meeting she never returned (We were told this one reason, but there were also other reasons that we were told were there, just not what they were.) If she found an all girls team and therefore learned all about FIRST, that is beneficial to the philosophy of FIRST, not detrimental.)

Just my thoughts on a complex issue.

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

There are extant all-boys Catholic school teams; 254 is the most obvious example. And I don't think anyone can claim that the mission of FIRST has been compromised by the existence of a Hall-of-Fame team that has had a robot featured on ESPN and in Sports Illustrated.

Am I annoyed when people come up to my all-female team at competitions and ask "So.... did the guys build your robot?" Yes. Does that mean that I think an incredibly successful and inspiring team should be rejected from competition because of the organization it is based in? No. And that statement applies to all three teams I've worked with- female, male and co-ed.

Thanks so much for the support and recognition! That was by far the most amazing competition we've ever had. Expect us to be better by far at Championships (we still have some trump cards to pull).