Girls on Teams

[batbotcrewfrosh]

Since we are an all-girls team, we have lately been interested in the roles of girls on co-ed teams. Some members of my team were doing a survey of the number of girls on teams and their jobs at the Buckeye Regional. We were very disappointed to discover that on some teams, girls were given only the job of cheerleader, or publicist. Continuing that, just please give the number of girls on your team, along w/ the number of students on your team, and what the girls usually do. Thanks a lot!

[Greg Ross]

This query should probably be in the General forum, since only moderators may reply in this Q&A forum. (Although, now that I've responded, someone else may choose to "Begin [an] additional discussion regarding this question".)

[kristinL356]

We've got 2 college girls that do PR, fundraising, & spend their spare time in the machine shop. Our team captain from St. Louis was a girl. She's also strategist & did a lot of assembly. Our team captain for the upcoming Peachtree regional is a girl. She does a lot of videotaping & did our chairman's award stuff the previous year. Neither of the team captains spent much time in the shop. We've got 2 more girls (one high school & one college) that are there maybe 2/3 of the time that do a lot of machining & assembly & whatever else needs to be done. I'm a girl & I do a bunch of machining & whatever nobody else wants to do or can't be trusted to do. I think that's all of the girls on our team. There are hardly ever high school boys in the machine shop. I think I heard one of the college students (who did a lot of machining & designing too) say something about not wanting them where they'll get in the way or hurt themselves. Hehe. The high school boys are usually doing driver, human player, or assembly stuff. I think we've got about 11 guys (including the 3 college) on our team. I'm no good with numbers so those might be wrong. But I tried.

[soezgg]

6 of 25 students on our team are girls.

Generally speaking, on our team, most of them dont do anything.

But 2 of the cool ones do quite a bit of machining and handiwork.

The problem is, none of them take real initiative to do any of the design work, or fundraising or chairmans stuff. One of the parents on the team blame it on intimidation, most of us guys are pretty scary I guess.

I am trying to make them do more work and get involved, but its hard, Im not quite sure that they have the desire to learn, and if they dont, they are on the team for the wrong reasons.

[irigoyennorma]

Originally Posted by soezgg

The problem is, none of them take real initiative to do any of the design work, or fundraising or chairmans stuff. One of the parents on the team blame it on intimidation, most of us guys are pretty scary I guess.

I am trying to make them do more work and get involved, but its hard, Im not quite sure that they have the desire to learn, and if they dont, they are on the team for the wrong reasons.

I am really disappointed to hear this,because I believe that females should be leaders in this type field as much as men are; I believe that they should be as "scary" as the guys.

But I cannot completely say that women are not ding their part, because our team is proof of it.
Out of the 50 members in our team 19 of them are girls, including myself. And I am very proud to say that they do , if not more, the same amount of work as the boys on our team.
We have girls that have jobs from making the Scrap book to girls that take care of all the electronics! The girls on our team have learned that nothing is impossible because they are women and because society has made things how they are. They might be women on the outside, but in the inside they are as alike as a man.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by irigoyennorma

I am really disappointed to hear this,because I believe that females should be leaders in this type field as much as men are; I believe that they should be as "scary" as the guys.

Perhaps in the initial quote regarding being intimidated, it may be partially that and also, it may be hard for members (old and new) to take ownership of their contributions to the team.
After the new members are made to feel welcome and offered opportunities to learn, train, be a part of the team, then it is up to each of them to step up and accept the challenge of being on the team in whatever capacity they are assigned or they choose. By stepping up, they are each taking ownership. Some are timid or just don't 'get it' for a year or so. Those require patience. Some 'get it' right away and are able to work through their shyness and the intimidation factor. That is why it is so important that veteran members, both students and mentors, support the process of building a team.

[woogit]

we have 25 people
5 of whom are girls
one is Poj. manager
one is fundraising
and the other three including me are machinists...

[Hailfire]

4 out of 10 students are girls on our team. One does all of the web work, organizes team parties, one does most of the electrical stuff, wiring, etc., one does all of the writing, typing, and cheering for the team, and the last one represents our team by being the team mascot, and does a variety of stuff.

Meanwhile, I did some animation, some work on the crate for the robot, some wiring, some programming, and quite a bit of construction.

I guess you could say that everyone on our whole team did something constructive throughout build period, and outside of build period.

[skrussel]

OOOPS! Jason....6 out of 13 are girls!!! they did wiring, construction, and carpentry.

Originally Posted by Hailfire

4 out of 10 students are girls on our team. One does all of the web work, organizes team parties, one does most of the electrical stuff, wiring, etc., one does all of the writing, typing, and cheering for the team, and the last one represents our team by being the team mascot, and does a variety of stuff.

Meanwhile, I did some animation, some work on the crate for the robot, some wiring, some programming, and quite a bit of construction.

I guess you could say that everyone on our whole team did something constructive throughout build period, and outside of build period.

[Hailfire]

Originally Posted by skrussel

OOOPS! Jason....6 out of 13 are girls!!! they did wiring, construction, and carpentry.

If you didn't notice, I posted that a year ago. On 3-25-03.

[Ashley Weed]

We have about 9 people listed as female members on the list of almost 40 team members. I am the only one you will ever find in the shop, I work on Intelliegence, and I am the operator. The others who are 'involved' with the team are business/PR members.

[Melissa Nute]

We have a good amount of girls on my team (actually I think more than the number of boys) and all our girls work out in the shop either doing machining, welding, or such.

[AdamT]

Originally posted by soezgg
The problem is, none of them take real initiative to do any of the design work, or fundraising or chairmans stuff. One of the parents on the team blame it on intimidation, most of us guys are pretty scary I guess.

I am trying to make them do more work and get involved, but its hard, I'm not quite sure that they have the desire to learn, and if they don't, they are on the team for the wrong reasons.

This seems to be the most common problem. We only have 2 girls on our team, and they both chose to mainly work on PR and such, even though one of them decided to help out where she could on the robot. In her situation she didn't think she was smart enough to do the stuff that was going on. I tried to get to understand that you don't have to understand all of it to be a great member. I don't know if my message got through, but I tried.

I think recruiting women is an important part of the program. And I do mean recruit. You may be lucky enough to have some girls filter into the team by word of mouth, but many times the best female members will come because they are asked. If you ask them to come and they want to, they are more likely to be productive members for the sheer fact that someone felt them valuable enough to ask them to come.

It's important for team members to follow through and invite them to work on different things if they become seemingly unmotivated to be aggressive. This something that not only mentors should do. Team members should encourage other team members to get their say in if they are quiet. Have the older members mentor the younger mentors.

I think the key to having women on a team is to show them that they can do this and it's not a "guy thing." If you tell someone they are stupid and can't do certain things, eventually they will think that (and women are still often told that in respects to engineering). Break that mentality!

In FIRST as in the rest of the world, apathy is our enemy.

[riboSquirrel]

Originally Posted by AdamT

This seems to be the most common problem. We only have 2 girls on our team, and they both chose to mainly work on PR and such, even though one of them decided to help out where she could on the robot. In her situation she didn't think she was smart enough to do the stuff that was going on. I tried to get to understand that you don't have to understand all of it to be a great member. I don't know if my message got through, but I tried.

I think recruiting women is an important part of the program. And I do mean recruit. You may be lucky enough to have some girls filter into the team by word of mouth, but many times the best female members will come because they are asked. If you ask them to come and they want to, they are more likely to be productive members for the sheer fact that someone felt them valuable enough to ask them to come.

It's important for team members to follow through and invite them to work on different things if they become seemingly unmotivated to be aggressive. This something that not only mentors should do. Team members should encourage other team members to get their say in if they are quiet. Have the older members mentor the younger mentors.

I think the key to having women on a team is to show them that they can do this and it's not a "guy thing." If you tell someone they are stupid and can't do certain things, eventually they will think that (and women are still often told that in respects to engineering). Break that mentality!

In FIRST as in the rest of the world, apathy is our enemy.

we have three girls including myself, one is a junior,i am a sophmore and the others a freshman... thing is... i can't touch the robot(almost killed it last year>.<) but lynn, now SHE is like mighty woman... she is a really good robot driver, and i envy her everfy so often just because she is alowed to touch the robot and i'm not...

[aallen88]

My freshman year I was pretty much the only girl on my team. Now I'm in my senior year and there's a pretty good handful. Just appeal and support. I know I stuck with the team because I had mentors and students that were so supportive and helped me with every and anything. They never made me feel stupid or frustrated. Let the kids at your school know that robotics is engineering, but there's still a little bit of everything that needs to be done. Now I broke the status quo of my team and became the first girl team captain this year. Hell yes!