[JuliaGreen]

The Killer Bees have had a team of 50% male and 50% female for the last three years. Here is what we do:

1. Recruit from FLL. These students already know FIRST and the fun of challenges and competitions.

2. Recruit students who were not in FLL. Some of these students have deep experience in how things work and they may have been in another program in middle school (Destination Imagination, VEX, other robotics programs, Science Olympiad, etc.)

3. Sell the program to the parents. The reality is that we need the parents to drive their students to and from meetings for about 2 years. If the parents are sold, then the students will be too. Some things we make sure the parents know about include the money for scholarships, the internships available to high school students, the skill development, the real-world applications of math and science, the reference letters our mentors will write for the students, the sense of belonging to something bigger than yourself, the list goes on. And we work with the parents of our student leaders to make sure they know what the time commitment is.

4. We have the students go recruit other students. The students arrange to demonstrate the robot during lunch periods, during the freshmen "meet and greet", during the last few days of the school year at the middle school and any other school event we can get to with the students and the robot. This has been our "secret sauce" in getting more girls to join the team. We send our current team members (girls and boys) and they go talk to their peer groups and the peer groups that are several years younger.

5. We do demonsrations in our community. When we are at an event, our students talk to everybody. "What high school do you think you will go to? School ABC? That's great - they are Team number xyz and their website is at .....com. You should make sure to contact them. "

Once we have them recruited, this is how we retain them:

Team selection: We initially prioritize selecting freshmen and sophomores for the team. This way, we have a chance to teach them over multiple years and we get a chance to know them well. Sometimes, we will have students apply to the team as juniors/seniors - and by then, we need these upperclassmen to be experts. We view this as a 4 year experience.

At our initial meetings, we throw everyone out of the CAD/software/media rooms and put them in the shop. We have the upperclassmen show the NewBees how to make a bracket. In fact, we call them "Freshmen Brackets". Some of these brackets end up on the robot. In 2014, every student made a part for the robot. All 42 of them. Even the "Chairman's"/PR team.

During their initial year on the team, we don't assign students to a subteam. We used to do this and when we did exit interviews with the students, we have been told that "You put me on the electrical team and I hated it. I wanted to program". We have an open structure where the team leads can have any number of students help them with a project or task and those students learn skills and concepts they might not have had a chance to learn before. This way, students learn across the spectrum - electrical, mechanical, machining, programming etc. We strongly believe in having students teach other students. If you teach it, you know it. And we do this year-round. Student are expected to participate in all 4 seasons (Fall - Pre Season, Winter - Build, Spring - Competition, Summer - Preparation)

How does this get girls on the team and to stay on the team? Because they see that they can participate equally with any other student. We select leaders for our team who will do the best job. Because of this skill development, we have had had a 100% female drive team this year. Last year it was 33% female/66% male. In 2012, the drive team was 100% male. Next year it will be different.

Especially when the NewBees are in the shop, the mentors will make sure everyone is comfortable. Some of the machines are scary. They go out of their way to show everyone how to properly operate the machines and they may need to do this more than once. They know that if they can get the students interested in what happens in the shop, then the students are hooked on this program and will stay. When we do have students leave the team before graduation, it has been from the group of students who do not have an interest in building the robots.

During our wrap-up at the end of every meeting, every group reports on what they did. Most of the time, we make the newest Bee "stand and deliver" and the student leaders help guide them. This builds confidence in knowing what you are talking about. The team leaders make sure to give some type of positive feedback to the group in front of the rest of the team.

This is our system that we have developed over many years. It works for us.

TL; DR
Do we specifically recruit girls to our team? Yes, we do.
Do we specifically recruit boys to our team. Yes, we do.

Julia