[Libby Ritchie]

We have a lot of girls on our team, though we have had many more in years past. However, I think a big part of that has to do with the fact that I am the team coordinator/leader and I'm female. The girls see that if I can run this team, they surely can contribute to the team and they have done very well.

I have a student team coordinator that is a girl (Stefanie Keffaber, 11th grade) and she has been a team leader for two years. She holds the highest ranking position for a student on the team as she oversees ALL of our sub-teams. (Sub teams include manufacturing, CAD, animation, chairmen's, and web) She is one of our best on the manufacturing team and has much influence, input, and actual build time on our robot.

In addition to Stef, we have four girls on the web team (on a team of five), five girls on the chairmen's team (out of five), and just Stef this year on manufacturing.

Like many others have said, it doesn't matter if they aren't directly working on the robot...the girls involved are making career choices that have been inspired by involvement with FIRST, they are marketing our team to sponsors and helping me find funds, and doing a LOT of work that must be done in order for this team to survive.