Girls on Teams

[LauraN]

Originally Posted by michael_obrien

we have one girl who does girly stuff. She's the girlfriend of our team president. I guess we also have another girl but she does jack. I only saw her at the competition.

Originally Posted by M. Krass

I'd be interested in reading about what "girly stuff" entails.

You know, girly stuff. =)

This conversation developed earlier in this thread. I assume he means things not related to actually building the robot: specifically scouting, PR, making buttons, web design, etc. But I'd also like to hear what he has to say for himself

As for Team 30, females are taking over next year. *evil laughter*

It just happened to work out that a lot of core members who will be seniors next year happen to be female. Or maybe it's more that most of the females happen to be core members who will be seniors. In any case, Kristi will be head of the electronics team, I'll be working with mechanical, and Tetty, Sarah and Selena will be all over everything else: PR and fundraising and Chairman's award. The plan is to do active recruiting and get lots of people involved in those areas, but those girls will be leading those sub-teams.

In terms of "girly stuff," though, it seems interesting to note that during this current season, our animation, photoshop, and web design teams were all male (with one exception).

Or maybe that's just what happens when your school is about 70% male. =)

[c-squared_2006]

I'm the only other girl besides one of my friends. We get equal chances with the boys. There's really no 'girly stuff' I work on scouting, of course. But I also am on the group that builds the pratice field. In fact I'm the student head. The other girl is the student head of scouting, but frankly she really didn't do much, so I took over. We really need dedicated members for our team. But as long as the person works hard and does their job, they have a equal chance at everything. No matter what sex.

[winterfairy100]

Almost every year our team has had many girls on the team. Granted our team isn't very large but its still about 50:50 and our pit crew is mostly girls. This year alone we had 6 girls and 4 guys in the pit at nationals. In fact our team started with girls. Most years (with few exceptions) our team captains have been girls. This year all 3 of our pit bosses were girls and I was taught how to fix our drive module by girls. We do so much on our team.

[Adare180]

At Nationals, a few of the girls on my team (Mary, Tiff, and I) went to the Robotic Chicks Union meeting, and next year, we are going to try to start some type of "Robotic Chickettes" in the elementary/middle school age students to recuit girls to join are team and possess an interest in science and engineering. On team S.P.A.M. now, there are over thirty students involved, only 12 of which being girls. Out of all the team membors that went to Atlanta for the championship, only 8 were girls, less than 1/3 of the students who came with on the trip. I am the only active female team member from my school this year, and during the "rookie meetings" in the fall, there were only two girls in the entire class out of about 20. Go robotics girls! Go Robotic Chicks Union!

[Goobergunch]

Our team is based out of an all-boys school, so we don't have any girls on our team for obvious reasons. However, we are considering partnering with our sister school for next year.

[tiffany34990]

okay i must say i'm a girl and well i do more than a lot of girls on our team-- i'm one of the only girls on the pit crew at competition other is mary-- and well i'm pretty much the pit boss gal--
and without me the team would be a mess-- i organize all the tool-- i know where they all are and well the guys count on me-- jame jones always makes me organize the pit, color code tools, and it's busy work but it's my job and i don't mind it cause i still get to work on the bot and machine parts!! I LUV USING THE BRIDGEPORT! and well even our machinist jack says he likes working with girls rather than guys cause the girls on our team that he works with are willing to learn--not bashing any of the guys but that's what he says-- and it's good though for girls to be out teams and other teams-- some dont' have to work in the pit or do the cheering or whatever- each have a part of the team and help the team-- everyone does the guys and mentors too!!
but to those girls out there--keep on going--dont' give up and feel that u can't do something-- just go and get u'r hands dirty-- dirt and grease will come off!! and well just have fun in FIRST b/c it's totally awesome!!!

[RiceRobotica]

Well, I'm one of 3 or 4 girls on a team of about 20. I'm a machinist and the drive team coach/mentor person. I like to believe I added that much needed feminine touch to everything I made on this year's robot. "It's pretty!" rang through the rooms when I really liked something. One of the other girls helped with building the crate, among other things. Come competition time, she was the Queen of all of our scouts. She was in control of, not only the scouting forms, but the scouts themselves. The other two were helpful during the building season with just about anything that needed doing.

Besides being good at building, machining and the like, the Queen and I did some of the pit interviews for our scouting notebook. We never realized how good we could be at it. But we met some great people doing that!

[SarahBecker]

Despite what our guys want to believe, more than half of our team are girls, and our entire pit crew is made up of only girls, and they rock! They built most of the bot this year, and continue to be practically the only ones who work on it. Our boys have ended up in the stands working on scouting, with the rest of the girls on our team. Our human player this year (and last) was a girl, and the main operator this year was a girl.
So all you girls out there... keep up the good work... we ARE taking over!

[RLopez]

we have 7 girls.. some their jobs include:
some working on Chairman's
PR
Spirit (as the rest of our team)
Business

I am the photographer, so i take care of that ;D.. i also work with PR and business.. and i help around wherever available (building, etc) even helping with dotting the i's and crossing the t's .. In my first year with FIRST/Robotics team.. i didnt know much about construction and such.. so the only way to learn is to get yourself involved as much as you can.. so im just helping around right now.. and ive learned a lot ;D..

[davey_c]

We have 5-6 girls on the team out of around 25. Four came with us to nationals. All of them work on the robot (actually, everyone on our team does at least some handiwork with the robot).

Any ideas on how to attract more girls to the team? Also on how to attract people to do PR, fundraising, etc., and not work on the robot? We always only get people who want to handle the power tools and do the design, and no one who's willing to focus on other stuff like sponsorship that is also vital to the team.

[Lisa Perez]

Our team is based out of an all-boys school, so we don't have any girls on our team for obvious reasons. However, we are considering partnering with our sister school for next year.

This was the same situation for Brother Rice (Team 573) in 2003. They partnered with their sister school (my school), Marian that year... and I must say, what a good idea that was! 25% of our team was composed of girls the first year and participation from Marian has grown since then.

[wasabi824]

Our team was 25% - 35% girls, and they had absolutely crucial jobs. one girl was our HR rep, one girl built the drivetrain with three guys, two girls made our pins, designed our t-shirts, banners, stickers... they learned photoshop from scratch and now are more skilled than most average computer users. one of our girls managed our $30,000 budget. one girl was our shooter, and she was one of the best shooters in atlanta hands down.

i am the team president (a guy), but i fully support girls' roles and one of our goals next year is to make engineering and FIRST more appealing to girls at our beautiful University of Washington campus.

hope this helps.

[KathieK]

Originally Posted by davey_c

Any ideas on how to attract more girls to the team? Also on how to attract people to do PR, fundraising, etc., and not work on the robot? We always only get people who want to handle the power tools and do the design, and no one who's willing to focus on other stuff like sponsorship that is also vital to the team.

When you do recruiting in your school, emphasize that there are many roles to play on the team -we have a brochure that lists the many different skills we are looking for; i.e. writing (public relations, Chairman's Award), computer animation, computer programming, sports (don't forget those human players), mathematics, business, finance, accounting, art (designing buttons, t-shirts, painting wall murals at our facility, designing posters), etc.

One way to attract people in those areas is to contact the teachers of those areas to see if there is anyone they think might be interested.

[spaz_343]

Im not really sure how many girls we have on our team, but we do have some around 8 or so. It's true that some teams only have girls on them for cheering, ect. But at least least its not true in all cases. As far as my team (343) goes, our female team members are treated the same on our team, but most of us only want to deal with marketing. As for myself I do the team website... sort of (didn't really get to do anything this year, but hopefully its going to change)

[811SmallFry]

Out of 48 students, 7 are girls. 2 seniors, 2 juniors, 3 freshmen (freshwomen ). One is in controls, one does CAD work, one is in marketing, PR, and occasionally indulges herself in 3DS and controls work, one is Marketing, PR, and occasionally CAD and Manufacturing. One is Manufacturing and Marketing, one is Manufacturing and hopefully will soon be working in controls, and I am involved in Marketing, PR, and our Web team.
We're all really busy, as you can tell... but our team (particularly the girls on it) is really well-rounded.