Girls on FIRST teams

[Liz Smith]

Originally Posted by kathimm1

With our team I am the only girl whos been trying for now 3 years to get girls to join the team.I tried to explain it to them that u dont have to work with the tools if u dont want to.also tried to tell them theres other things to do like tshirt designs and pins and website designing. Its not easy to get girls to join.Tried pictures and they ended up in little pieces in the trash and me getting laughed at it wasnt fun.next time everythings going to be laminated so it cant be ripped up.
Krista

While its always nice to have other girls on the team, sometimes it's worse to have people who don't want to be there. For awhile, on my team I was the only girl who showed up consistantly to every meeting. My senior year as captain, I made sure everyone knew when meetings were and tried to keep the group (boys and girls) on the same page. There was another girl who organized a smaller group of girls to compete at a lego competition. That was great, I got to connect with some of the girls and encourage them to stick it out for the FRC build season. Interest was sparked, but still on 2/4 of the trips I was the only girl to travel. Its hard, and it makes you want to go and force other girls to come and share this great experience you've been having... but other people have other priorities. The year after I graduated, our high school started an all-girls FRC team, which sort of evolved out of the all girls Lego team. Though the forming of the team had some controversy, the team is still competing 3 years later. I go back and help them, and just basically be friends with them, and tell them about college. I let one come visit me this past fall during their college search. I'm happy that they're into this competition and are liking it. I've had parents tell me I'm a great role model for their daughters, because I was a female leader. It's a great feeling to hear something that. I recently looked on facebook, because a lot of the girls I have mentored graduated this year... almost all of them are going to school as engineering and technology majors. I'm thrilled.

Krista, my advice to you is to not get hung up on these girls who don't respect you and rip up your pictures. Enjoy what you are doing, and maybe some girls will see what a great time your having, and the great things you are doing and will want to join the team.