pic: We left the boys at home

[falconmaster]

Observations of Faridodin “Fredi” Lajvardi, co-mentor of team 842

On the topic of “what we learned,” and without intent to cause offense, here are my observations. I am by no means an expert on these matters, and I don’t claim to know all the solutions.

First, some background information is appropriate. Twelve female students from co-ed team 842 attended the San Diego Regional event. They were accompanied by four adult males and two adult females including mentor and physicist Karen Suhm, Ph.D. Normally, Dr. Karen Suhm is the lead mentor of programming for the co-ed version of team 842. In San Diego, Karen was in charge of most aspects of the girls’ team as the adult mentor of the drive team, and lead strategist along with the lead student driver. The men on the trip played support roles for Karen and helped manage the scoring in the stands with our new Digitally Enhanced Scoring System.

Observations:

1. Males from other teams that seemed to have little or no role on their own team tended to “hang out” in our pit area. Interference and interruptions by these males adversely affected Karen’s ability to work with her team. I (male mentor) was asked to “make the guy go away.” Versions of this scenario recurred throughout the three days of the regional event.
2. (I hope I don’t burn in FIRST hell for this one) Tech inspection lasted longer than in any other regional event in my six years of being in FIRST. It lasted about an hour. The robot had already been through a technical inspection at the Arizona Regional and placed 2nd in the finals. The girls received an inordinate amount of attention. They were quizzed on various parts of the robot followed by a mini lecture on the operations of the components in question. While this was great for the girls in that it gave them the opportunity to demonstrate how much they know and become more aware of what still needs to be mastered, it wasn’t typical of any inspection that I have observed. Along the same lines, the inspectors allowed the lead female mentor, Karen, to help with the student’s responses. The male mentors have never been allowed to participate in the past. I have never seen this level of attention paid to the co-ed tech inspection team (typically 3 males, 1 female) when they take the robot through inspection. It could just be a fluke, but it is what I observed. The following week at the Vegas Regional with our co-ed tech team, tech inspection only took about ten minutes.
3. We have been the Arizona Regional Chairman’s Award winner for the past three years now: 2005, 06, 07. Before that, we won the Engineering Inspiration, 2004, and in Los Angeles we won the Chief Delphi Driving Tomorrow’s Technology Award, 2003. More recently, we won the Engineering Inspiration Award at the Las Vegas Regional, 2007. At the national level, we have won the Engineering Inspiration and Honorable Mention for Chairman’s in 2005 and 2006, respectively. Yet in San Diego the girls were essentially ignored. The team had the same pit set up, the same scrapbook, the same video DVD playing, the same robot. The only difference at this particular regional event among the students who speak to the judges when they come by is the absence of one male student. Sour grapes on my part? Maybe. Is this mere coincidence? Perhaps. Nonetheless, these are my observations.
4. After Karen, along with her students, completed the strategy agreements with their alliance teams with whom they were about to enter a match, the male members of the alliance teams flagged down Dr. Cameron’s and my attention as we were walking to the stands to watch the next match. They wanted to change the strategy that Karen and her team had already negotiated. Karen became aware of this and had to intervene and reestablished the agreement on strategy.
5. While our driver was looking at the team rankings on the monitor, a male participant of another team made a derogatory remark to her about how poorly her team was performing. Our driver pointed out his lack of gracious professionalism. Additional derogatory remarks by other male participants were reported to us by our team members.
6. The girls were able to do all the pit activities and have the robot make every match on time. They made all the repairs and maintenance tasks including changing out the batteries as well as the guys.
7. The girls’ driving skills were not as advanced as the male drivers; however, their inexperience helped to identify two flaws in the robot that were not evident with the more experienced male drivers. This same robot with these same flaws made it to the final rounds at the AZ Regional event and the team finished second. Apparently, the males had been compensating for the minor drive train problem that existed. This also resulted in an inaccurate autonomous mode. Furthermore, the robot was intended to have the code in its programming that kept the robot at 40% maximum power to allow the driver to have more finesse with the robot and then, when a trigger is pulled, the robot was supposed to have full power to push other robots around for a defensive mode. Again, the boys’ higher driving skills masked this inability to achieve 100% driving power. The female driver was able to experience and identify these problems. Upon investigation, the team found that the drive train had one bolt missing from a mount that made the transmissions loose. The team fixed that. Karen also found that the code in the program did not allow for the robot to ever get 100% to the robot motors when the right trigger was pulled. Karen fixed the code and the robot had access to full power when the driver demanded it. The robot now had an upgraded autonomous mode, and it was now able to push any other robot in the tournament, which the robot was designed to do. Beginners tend to bring fewer preconceptions. We benefited from the perspectives of our less experienced drivers.
8. At the team social, two gentlemen wearing official FIRST shirts came over to the area where we were eating. One of the men was Jim Beck, Western Regional Director. Both men expressed curiosity about team 842 based on the reputation we have been building over the past four years. The two gentlemen then noticed that we had only girls on the team and proceeded to inquire as to why that was so, since they never heard that we were an all girls team. We then explained that we were indeed a co-ed team and that we wanted to give the girls on the team the full experience of what it was like to compete in a regional without the boys on the team. They were very excited about the concept and were pleased that we were willing to experiment with new ideas. They told us that this is what they had heard about our team; that we are always testing out new territory. It was at this point that we realized that this endeavor was more consequential than we ever imagined.



Purely subjective personal opinions:

1. While the original intent was to try something different in an effort to empower the female team members, every member of the team – mentors, teachers, male and female students – learned something.
2. In some circumstances, to provide a genuine equal opportunity may require more than just opening a door.
3. Many males on the team learned that what is often perceived as female passivity is not completely independent of male behaviors – behaviors that can be intentional or unintentional.
4. The females on our team clearly benefited from direct, unobstructed, undiluted participation. Such experience fosters the development of skills and self-confidence.


A final note:

Team 842, by consensus of all members, is a stronger team as the result of this experience.