FEMALES!

[KelliV]

The people on my FIRST team are awesome and have always treated me as an equal even though I am a female. I've been doing FIRST related stuff sience FLL in 6th grade and I am currently a Junior in High School. There were only two times that I was ever discriminated against.

In FLL I was told that I was not good enough to program because I was a female. It was a guy that said it and it made me feel so bad that I decided to show him and finished all the programming a good three days before he did. The teacher told him that his weren't as good as mine so not only did I do them faster but they used my programs insted of his!

At FIRST Nationals in '04 I had a guy from another team come up to me and ask me why I got to be on WildStang and how I passed my interview to get on the team becuase only men should be accepted. Not only was I amazed that he would actually say that, I was laughing to myself (not out loud, I am not that mean yet) while he was saying it becuase WildStang is all inclusive and there aren't interviews or try outs. When I informed him of this he just laughed at me and said "Oh, so that's why you made the team." I just let it go and didn't worry about it becuase people only make fun of others becuase they don't have enough self-esteem to think highly of themselves.

[Dorienne]

When I was the only girl on my robotics team two years ago, I was a freshman. That may alter the opinions and examples I set here.
I started out on the team in 2003, and it was a very hard adjustment. The guys did not trust me to stay, since many girls left after either a few weeks, or just one season. It was very hard for my team to acquire girls and keep them. They did not treat me as horrible as I seemed to think, considering they would tease me and not let me do the things I wanted to do for and on the team. For example, I had wanted to work on the robot itself. The problem was that I didn't have any technical background or experience. I understand now that there was no time to teach me or help me with it, but back then I had really wanted to do some hands on stuff like any other freshman would. Instead, I got into the business form of FIRST with our team's beloved Miss Jenny Beatty.
Things were rough and sometimes still are. But that's how life, and FIRST, are. You take the bad with the good and make it great.