Girls on Teams

[torihoelscher]

I am the President of my team. I also was Historian for one year, Software Sub Team lead for 2 years. I am also one of the chairmans presenters. We have 17 girls on my team but only 12 go to competitions.

Being on a Co-ed team is great.

My freshman year I was part of the mechanical subteam, software subteam, and was a mascot for Spirit.

Dont worry the world is changing!

[Rachel Baker]

I am one of the 4 girls on our small-but-mighty team of ten. Our entire team has to be very involved with the robot since we have so few members, and that includes all of the girls.

One female member of the team is our strategist and a very prominent team leader. Another girl is co-pit boss, and another is our inbounder. I am our driver.

We all took an active part in building the robot, scouting, talking to other teams and judges, and being on the drive team.

The girl members on our team are just as much as a part of the team as the male members. We all have our roles, and they don't depend on our gender.

[Jujubee]

Out of about 25 kids on our team, 3 of them are girls. I personally am the oldest and I've been in mechanical all my FIRST life, and this year I'm the coach for drive team. The two other girls just joined this year, one being a sophomore and the other is a freshman. They aren't really into anything other than web as of lately, and they kind of stick together. What I think is really important to know about girls on the teams is that they tend to either be reallly dedicated (5-6 days a week) or casually interested. I really don't think that it has to do with girls being steered away from more hands-on things, but their interests usually lie elsewhere. I think that as much as I enjoy mechanical I just don't have a natural knack for it like the guys do, however I have experiences that say that girls are much more moldable and flexible than the stubborn boys!

[theawesome1730]

Out of about 45 kids on our team, 10 of them are girls. 4 of them are communications/chairman's/website only. One does CAD and the other are assembly and machining

[VexisDarksteele]

In total, our team of 35 members has 5 girls, including myself. Although, those numbers are strictly based on the members we have registered in STIMS — during the build weeks, we generally have about 12 participating members; 2-3 active girls. We also have one woman as a mentor, and she does electrical.
One of our attending girls tends to be mainly a promotional type. I'm the only active veteran girl; the other two are first-year members. I basically do everything and anything on the team. I've done CAD before, I've done fabrication, I've been the mascot, I've done website management, I've done fundraising and event coordination, I'm currently on the Chairman's team and student government. I prefer doing tasks that are mechanical or leadership based. Our other active girl is kinda like my understudy — she follows me around everywhere and likes to learn things from me. Once I graduate next year, I have no doubts that she'll fill my place.

[giantmidget31]

We have about 12 people on our team (It's hard to say who's actually on it because many members have irregular attendance patterns). There are 4 girls.
-a sophomore (me) who does electrical and is the coach on the drive team
-a sophomore who is the head of scouting
-a senior who is the head of design (t-shirts, banners, etc.)
-a freshman who is just getting started and has no official role yet, but helps out with build

Last year, we had a female captain, this year our captain is male.

[Aroki]

Team 1787 has no girls on it and if I am not mistaken, has never had girls on it.

[torihoelscher]

Originally Posted by Aroki

Team 1787 has no girls on it and if I am not mistaken, has never had girls on it.

I think I am going to join your team. Why arent there any girls?

[gracekrueger444]

GIRLS RULE

[Gilgamesh]

My freshman year there were 5/20 girls on the team, that ratio has consistently gone down to 2-5/30 the past five years. This is not due to trying on the part of the team leadership to have a co-ed team. When we do get more girls than that it tends to be that they do just want to come 'cheerlead' or take a trip into Boston.

[Herbblood]

WE have gone from 2-3 girls to now 8, in everywhere on the team, we are in electrical, fab, mechanical, media, safety, and in programming(me!).

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Gilgamesh

My freshman year there were 5/20 girls on the team, that ratio has consistently gone down to 2-5/30 the past five years. This is not due to trying on the part of the team leadership to have a co-ed team. When we do get more girls than that it tends to be that they do just want to come 'cheerlead' or take a trip into Boston.

Perhaps it's attitudes like this that have led to fewer girls being comfortable joining your team?

[MysterE]

Our team strives to have multiple forms of diversity. I think we focus a lot on the girl/guy ratio but also important is the ratio of minority groups to majority groups and the like.

But on this particular topic - we currently have 30 members. 15 are girls. While a number of them have chosen roles that seem to be common among teams (media, Chairman's presenters, and overall leadership), our Lead Programmer in training is a girl, our Drive Coach is a girl, and a number of our builders are girls.

[AtarashiiSekai]

On our team, out of 12 total members, we have maybe 5 girls who are active. Many of them are put on fundraising duties, but 2-3 have a very active role in our bot, one of them being the team captain and the others are our drivers.

I think a lot of girls are interested and want to help and be part of the robots, but do not have any self-motivation or direction to find something on their own. It could be because of intimidation, I'm not exactly sure, but I have noticed this on my team since I joined.

[Miss157]

On our team we have about six girls. One is the person who CADded most of our robot, another designed our T-shirt, and I'm Safety Captain and I write submissions for the awards.

It's a little disheartening to hear people in this thread be so dismissive to be honest. "Just do PR"? PR and promotional material is part of what makes FIRST to begin with. Spreading the message of FIRST, organizing outreach, getting your team name and FIRST out there is INCREDIBLY important.

A huge part of FIRST is that "It's about more than just the robot".