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Originally Posted by KenWittlief
my point is: is it reasonable to expect the ratio to be 50:50?
If you look at the present situation, and from your perspective you think it should be 50:50, and that makes you upset or angry, or it pushes you work towards making it 50:50, are you looking at things realistically?
Im only raising the question. What should the ratio be?
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I say no ratio. Those that are interested should pursue their desires, rather than being handed a special incentive to make things "equal" when their skill levels may not be as high as the next applicant or participant.
But that is off topic entirely. My apologies.
On our team, we have one female mentor that
always encourages the girls, especially the new ones, to listen carefully to the discussions and instructions, then grab the boys' tools and push them out of the way to show that they can do it too. Its a bit of a rough theory, but it works
I've never particularly had a firm spot on our team. My first year was largely animation, logo design, and, during competition season, photographing, scouting, and following Ricky. Last year, I was the human player, led some of the team meetings, painted the frame, and helped out with fundrasing and publicity as much as I was able. Both years, I picked up fairly random skills, one day I would work with 3DS Max, the next I would be welding, or soldering, or machining gearboxes, or assembling gearboxes, or using the plasma cutter, or organizing the nuts/bolts drawers.
This year, I've been working with our new FLL team and I have noticed an odd thing. Whenever the 7 boys get very involved in one aspect of the game, the 3 girls automatically withdraw to working on their research projects. The other two girls that mentor with me can't seem to get the younger girls to be quite so involved in the building process as they were for the first 2-3 weeks.
Maybe it is the lack of structure, girls want to work from a plan, guys want to freehand a project and see where it goes...I don't really have a concrete answer. What I can say is that the more passionate a girl is about a certain aspect of the team (and yes, this holds true for guys as well), the more respect she will gain from her peers and the more opportunities she will have within the team. Don't withdraw. Don't hold back. FIRST is a no-holds-barred opportunity. It is up to the students to make the most of their magnificent chance.