Why is it that not many girls are into robotics?

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by Erin Rapacki

I think it’s a combination of the attitudes of the mentors and current students on the team. A team who already has females on it may do better at attracting more, a team with only guys (but guys who encourage females to take a leadership role) may do well at recruiting, but a team with only guys where girls don't even register on their radar as being technically competent will not do well at attracting them. All teams should recognize girls as having the potential of being technically competent enough to have a leadership position. The team should also have a means of teaching those skills (through pre season projects, etc...). The robot education people here at UML have noticed that it takes more hand holding and a longer period of time to get the ball rolling on a girl's interest in robotics and sci/tech, but once they become interested, they go deeper into it, become very skilled, and remain interested (I witnessed this on an all-girls FIRST rookie team as well.)

Good stuff here. This is right on.

If you want young women on the team, you have to plan and prepare for it. They need to feel welcome and valued by mentors and current members. And they need to be allowed to get hands on so that they will gain the experience, skill, and confidence needed. The culture of the team has to encourage participation and make opportunities exist for this growth to occur.

[Sarah H]

Hey, Im on Team 33 the Killer Bees from Auburn Hills MI, and I have been on the team for 3 years. My rookie year and second year I made pit crew and as a senior, I am now the driver and my classmate, also a girl was the operator this year. We now have plenty of girls this year, granted that we are still outnumbered by the guys. a lot of our student leadership came from females, may teams I am close with also have a number of female student participants, teams like 111, 47, 1 , the pink Team, and many others. I think that FIRST is being discovered by more and more females each year. I think that a large reason that you may see few girls is because they do not know about the program

[Meredith Novak]

I did notice that the Bees had 2 girl operators

[David Brinza]

As I recall, Falcons Robotics (Team 842) had an all-girls drive team at the San Diego Regional in 2007.

The next year, Team 842 won the Chairman's Award in Atlanta.

That says a lot about FIRST's commitment to breaking the gender barrier in science and technology.

[katd30]

I think it's really mostly society and how we were brought up. Girls I think place more emphasis on being normal and doing robotics or anything technological is very not normal for girls. We were brought up trying to be the prettiest and fit in with everyone else that by the time you get to high school all your nerdishness has been supressed to the point where you can't get it back. To me thats an important part of FLL and Jr. FLL and why I've been bothering my school superintendent to set one up. If we get an 8 year old involved FIRST before she looses her geek side we've got her for life most likely.

Also a girl doing FLL will know more about tools and technology than someone who hasn't. Which is why all the girls on my team seem to quit every year. The guys know more and act like we can't do everything they can when all we need to get is a little help or a demonstration. I'm not blaming the guys but when a girl wants to get into something like this, encourage her cause she's most likely giving up a lot for it and its something sher really wants to do.

Eep... Long post... We just had this discussion with the guys on our team...

[falconmaster]

Originally Posted by David Brinza

As I recall, Falcons Robotics (Team 842) had an all-girls drive team at the San Diego Regional in 2007.

The next year, Team 842 won the Chairman's Award in Atlanta.

That says a lot about FIRST's commitment to breaking the gender barrier in science and technology.

We have been taking data for two years and we are getting ready to write a report about our findings. We even had some other teams helping us take data this year at the Championships. Thanks you all!