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

[Kims Robot]

Originally Posted by sithmonkey13

False: 1178, D.u.R.T. is primarily from an all boys Catholic high school (De Smet Jesuit High School) but we allow girls in from the other high schools that do not have teams but want to participate. Are there less girls than guys? Yes (3 girls this year on a ~30 member team).

Thats pretty cool! Im glad to hear that. I know in general (mostly for liability), most teams only allow students from their own schools as has been pointed out. However, there are always exceptions, and I guess I should have added the words "In general" to my statement Glad to see an all boys school allowing girls to participate!

There are always exceptions... 1511 has had students from other schools, one of the first of which was a girl who came to our team because we had some extra seats to attend a few competitions our rookie year and offered them to local teams. When we met this girl, she told us that her mentor had told her that she should stick to their spirit and chairmans teams because she was a girl & a cheerleader. When she really wanted to do the engineering work. She was frustrated, and ended up joining our team. We also "adopted" the students from team 73 one year when they lost their sponsorship. Its a bit of a headache to work out the liability & insurance stuff, but it can be worth it, and I'm glad to see other teams do it.

But sithmonkey's story is very true... I've even seen it on teams where the girls are from that school... the girls (in general ) aren't as comfortable as the boys at jumping right in, and if they don't have a friend or two that they are close with, they often leave the team, regardless of their interest. Heck, when I joined, it was only because 3 of my good friends were joining (one of which was another female a year older than me).