[kristinweiss]

My *former* team is about a quarter girls and for the most part they all gravitate towards website design, marketing, and outreach. That being said, when students join the team they are allowed to work on whatever they want to. Personally, having a strong personality and a mom in robotics, I gravitated very much towards the robot design and build and was on the drive team every year during my time on the team. I have spent my time on the team and as an alumni pushing some of the other girls to get more involved in the robot. I have noticed that a lot of the girls are intimidated at first because the guys who mainly build the robot are so close and can come off as somewhat cliquy, but once I break the barrier and help them get more involved in the robot, they don't want to do anything else. There are two main things that I have noticed that seem to really work to get girls more involved in the robot aspects of the team. The first one is letting them drive the robot. Literally every girl on the team I have ever offered to let drive the robot has hesitated because they were afraid they were going to mess something up, but as soon as they were given the push to take control and drive, it became very hard to take the controls away from them because they loved it so much. I think that letting girls drive the robot has really helped the girls on our team become more involved with the robot design and build because they are working so closely with the robot during competitions and become closer friends with the other robot designers and builders. The other thing that I have found that gets girls more involved in the robotic aspects is to have a female mentor or role model on the team. I grew up with a mom in robotics, so I have always had someone to look up to and was never afraid to take control or ask to try things. That being said, on a mainly male team with even fewer females working on the robot, girls tend to gravitate towards other girls, because let's face it, we are girls and we like to stick together. While I was on the team, I was able to get the number of girls working on the robot to increase simply because I was a girl and was able to look out for them and give them the support they needed. As soon as I graduated I was very disappointed to see that there were no girls working on the robot. When I came back and started to become more involved in the team as an alumni and mentor, I was able to get at least one girl involved who ended up being a rockstar driver at our regional competition and at worlds, and I hope that this year I can get even more girls involved.

So long story short, I think that girls are more inclined to do what they already know which tends to be more marketing and PR, and girls like to work with other girls. In order to get girls into more technical positions, they need other girls to work with and someone to help push them to try new things.