The makezine.com article had an interesting point that "When a girl enters a situation guarded, others will perceive it as a lack of confidence in her own ability." The thing about girls is that we don't like to put ourselves "out there" as much as boys do. That makes working in a group difficult, and I can see how that could steer someone away.
There should be more collaboration between male and female engineers. We have events and organizations for women involved in STEM (i.e. all-girls robotics teams, SWE, engineering sororities, etc.), so we've already established that, yes, women can be as successful in engineering. The problem is that some people (intentionally and unintentionally) "assume ignorance and downplay success" of women engineers, yet they want more female participation. Yes, there are male engineers who can overcome these biases, but women are still negatively affected by the more subtle biases.
It's not fair that some of us feel like we have to try harder to prove ourselves, but it's the truth. The only way for that to change is for someone to prove us wrong. Until then, we just have to keep trying to be a part of the growing female representation in the engineering workforce. It's like Gandhi said: "Be the change you want to see in the world."
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If we have a shortage of females on the team, mentors need to work with the females more.
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I feel like mentorship is necessary for girls to stick with robotics. In many cases, the male students on the team may intentionally or unintentionally leave out girls. Mentors can often observe this from an outside perspective, free from any social biases, and they are more mature. As a result, mentors could be successful in encouraging teamwork between the girls and boys.
If the boys do not include the girls straight off the bat, it is especially for mentors to take notice of the girls' skills. From my experience, it's important to a girl's confidence for her to feel appreciated on the team, even if it's only the mentors at first. This is especially true if there are only a handful of girls.