[CallieJ]

As a member of an all-girls team that shares a lab with an all-guys team, and currently attending a school with a co-ed team, I think that there's nothing particularly wrong, or right with any of these systems. Am I glad that I am on the team I am? Yes. Do we occasionally get all sorts of responses we'd rather not receive? Of course.

I think that female teams offer a much more comfortable environment for girls who are intimidated by the level of prior knowledge and intensity on some teams. I've found that most of the guys on both the all-guys team and the co-ed team had some experience with engineering, machining, programming and electronics before they joined. This is true of some girls on our team and on the co-ed team, but there are a lot fewer of them. If you are going into robotics as a girl, with no experience, it can be an uphill battle.

On the whole a lot of our team members are people who probably would not have joined FIRST if our team was not available. We tend to attract a demographic that is not the FIRST norm and have had great success with introducing a wider range of girls to science and technology, which is the point of having a team in the first place. Personally I think this is exactly supporting the philosophy of FIRST.