[Abra Cadabra IV]

I have to say I'm really impressed by the discussion going on in this thread. It's hard for me to find something to say that hasn't already been said - but I'll do my best.

I'm a proud alumna of two teams - one all-girl, and one coed. (Made possible by doing FTC and FRC concurrently for three years - FTC #25 is a Girl Scout team with mostly female mentors and FRC #2429 was run by my high school.)

The biggest difference between the two teams was probably how they treated new students. The girl scout team made sure everyone had an equal opportunity to learn, ask questions, and participate. In contrast, on my high school team you had to be pretty assertive to ever do anything. We also never had more than four girls on the team (out of ~20 or so members), most of whom had very little previous experience with anything technical. It was really hard to speak up, and even harder to be taken seriously.

Being on an all-girls team did wonderful things for my confidence and inspired me to become an engineer. I honestly can't say things would be the same if I'd only joined the coed team. Without all-girl teams, how many people like me would miss out?