[lenergyrlah]

I am a senior & this is my first year doing FIRST because I hadn't heard about it before. This year our team has 13 students & 4 are girls.

I know that our team is small & so my experiences may be a little skewed but our team basically let everyone do what they're best at. Now we have a small team so everyone helps build the robot to some extent. But in general i noticed that most of the girls on the team spent a little more time on the less-mechanical side of the team -- artwork, making pins, fundraising, etc. some more than others.

Now I am an entirely different story. I am not at all into artwork and I hate fundraising (even though I've done it). I love doing mechanical stuff, so I was put in charge of building our ramp (which BTW is really cool -- it's made out of aircraft flooring, it is pneumatic, & it's double-jointed so we have a shallow ramp for 12" & are still only 4 ft. tall). And then other stuff I just kind of did because nobody else was doing it (rules expert and scout captain), so I am also one of our tactitians/coaches.

Occasionally some of our team would joke about all the other girls making pins & me testing a ramp. But I don't feel "non-girly" because I'm covered in aluminum dust & have loctite all over my hands. I'm just having fun doing what I like. & if there's anyone else on our team who is better at doing whatever I'm doing I'll let them.