[N7UJJ]

Generally, because of our culture, girls do not enter high school with the same technical skill set (power tools, mechanics, etc) that boys do and male mentors value. As a result, girls, generally, lack the experience that would allow them to excel in a relatively short time. Males, culturally, have a great advantage entering engineering fields.

The 842 "We Left the Boys at Home" showed how quickly the girls learned with the experience of designing, maintaining our robot at a competition.

I emailed the girls who were on that team to read this thread. Most of them have or are about to graduate with an engineering degree. Hopefully, some will share their experiences.

We are also dong research on gender distribution in engineering education, engineering companies, and FIRST competitions. While we had not completed our study, the U.S. has a lot of "culture changing" to do before women are equals in STEM education and employment. While FIRST actively seeks to attract women and minorities into FIRST teams and STEM, it is obvious that women are not yet on par with men in their numbers nor their responsibilities on teams, and in FIRST itself.

So what can we do to "change the culture" so more females will participate? I think an all girls team is a great experiment.