Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?

[DeAnnaC]

One all-girls team that we have played before is the Robettes, from Mendota Springs, MN.

Their team is school based and they attend an all-girls Catholic school but their mentors appeared to be all male.

There is an all-boys Catholic school and all-girls Catholic school here in St. Louis, but they joined together to form one FRC team.

When the Robettes attended the St. Louis Regional, they'd wear very colorful hot pink tights and the plaid school skirts. Maybe a little distracting to the boys.. or is that part of their strategy? They always held their own against the mixed gender teams and usually went home with a trohphy of some kind.

The completion of the team stats each year for our team is interesting.. 1/2 of our team is homeschooled and many of those parents do not keep track of what 'grade' their student is in. This year we've got students from 5 different counties and 12 different schools, so it's quite the mix of students to figure out the % of low income students in your district.

On the Autism Spectrum question - by my 6 years of experience with the team, we've had 1-2 students every year that exhibit some spectrum behaviors. Does robotics draw those kind of kids in because it's ok to be a little obsessive about things that Autistic kids are good at like rules/safety or 3d animation? FIRST is different than most teams - it's ok to work on some things at your own pace, in your own way and still be part of a team, so maybe that is part of the attraction?

DeAnna