Will the next year of competitions bring more girls into FIRST?

[Michelle 236]

This coming season it looks like every senior member of our team will be female. We also have a good number of underclassmen girls on the team. For most of the girls, our team is a year-round commitment, because aside from build season and competition season, we work on our off season competition, lego competitions and and other PR things, as well as the Chairman's Award. I'm not saything we do PR things just because we're girls, but that is how a lot of our female members choose to contribute to the team, and put in just as much work and effort as the boys. We do have girls who build and program too. A couple of years back a girl programmed all our autonomous modes by herself.

I think a good way to recruit girls is psycology based. You have to present it to them in a different way then boys. You're more likely to get a guy to join if you put up a flyer that says 'Hey wanna build stuff?', but with girls, sometimes it takes a little more convincing. What we do is show videos of the competitions, and slideshows of our season, as well as explain the FIRST experience and our team experience in a assembly for our school and at freshman orientation, and it seems like the girls respond to the people aspect of FIRST.

Also, I think it's really important that once the girls join the team, they are treated just like the guys. They should be given every learning opportunity that the boys are, but if they choose to work on aspects other than building, they should still be treated with respect and recognized as a vital team member.

Girls definately add to the dynamics of a team, and I agree that we need more girls in FIRST.