I don't have a problem with the thread title ... two teams, one school ... for many of the reasons stated above, if both teams can thrive, then great! g/l to
both of ya'
... but personally (and I don't wanna' get too political or social or otherwise incorrect), I've gotta' start wondering about why the "all girls" rule for the second team ... if veteran teams have a plethora of members and they decide to spawn a rookie team, that's verrrry different from going all-girl with a team of only 20-something members.
What's next? A team made up of all [insert politically incorrect race/religion/belief group here] ?
I think that one of the underlying benefits of being in the FIRST
Family of participants, is learning how to work/play/learn/grow together in a diverse environment with different sorts of people ... if the boys are elbowing the girls out of the "good stuff", then speak up and let your mentors and team leaders help even out the workload.
If a girl is the best driver on the team, then she should be the driver (our team will be holding Tryouts for the driver positions ... the best ones get to drive ... it's not a popularity contest). If she want's to cut/grind/build then great! But everybody can't do everything on a team. The team benefits by each and every contribution from its members ... and we can't ALL be the driver ALL the time.
Heck, I'm a mentor and I wanna' Drive! Maybe I should start an All Mentor team!
As a 15yr "veteran" in the field of Electrical Engineering, I strongly encourage any girls that I meet, with an interest in science or engineering, to follow their dreams in earnest! The Male/Female percentages are very slanted to the M's nowadays ... but it's 100x more than the last generation ... and probably 100x fewer than the next generation. The industry in general will benefit more and more as our diverse gender/race/religion/whatever just blurs into
people working together towards a common goal.
For my 2-cents, I'd say keep the FRC team together and work out the issues that make you wanna' leave. I don't think 17+4 is a big enough team to split up. And I just personally don't like to see all-
this or all-
that sorts of groups in general ... but that's just me ... and you asked!
