Girls on FIRST teams

[rhoads2234]

Ok i am responing to a lot of quotes so bear with me....

Originally Posted by Temper Metal

I wanted to throw in the dynamic to you girls who do not like to be given special treatment. If you were given a full ride because you were a girl engineer, would you accept it?

I probably would but if I found out it was solely to up the schools ratio of girls to boys or just because I am a girl I would be furious. I would take the scholarship no matter what and prove that girls do the exact same things as guys do. At school, there is an ultimite(sp) frisbee club in the winter and I make sure that they don't see me as some girl doing because I felt like signing up for it but because I love to play and I make sure that they pick me by running almost constantly. Other girl who do frisbee often get put down because they and not passed to and they think it is because they are girls but it is because they don't work hard.

Originally Posted by lenergyrlah

I am a senior & this is my first year doing FIRST because I hadn't heard about it before. This year our team has 13 students & 4 are girls.

I know that our team is small & so my experiences may be a little skewed but our team basically let everyone do what they're best at. Now we have a small team so everyone helps build the robot to some extent. But in general i noticed that most of the girls on the team spent a little more time on the less-mechanical side of the team -- artwork, making pins, fundraising, etc. some more than others.

Now I am an entirely different story. I am not at all into artwork and I hate fundraising (even though I've done it). I love doing mechanical stuff, so I was put in charge of building our ramp (which BTW is really cool -- it's made out of aircraft flooring, it is pneumatic, & it's double-jointed so we have a shallow ramp for 12" & are still only 4 ft. tall). And then other stuff I just kind of did because nobody else was doing it (rules expert and scout captain), so I am also one of our tactitians/coaches.

Occasionally some of our team would joke about all the other girls making pins & me testing a ramp. But I don't feel "non-girly" because I'm covered in aluminum dust & have loctite all over my hands. I'm just having fun doing what I like. & if there's anyone else on our team who is better at doing whatever I'm doing I'll let them.

that is excatly how I feel, the girls on our team are afriad of offending the guys so they won't do anything. I do not have that fear and I think that guys when they play around purposfully offend oneanother. For those reasons I have no problem snd saying things like "let me work on that too" or"Do you have anything for me to do?"

Originally Posted by Beth Sweet

Honestly, my view on this is the same as my view on most differentiation: I'll give the job to whoever's competant.

I love to see girls pursuing careers that have not historically been available or encouraged for them, if that's what the enjoy and want to do. But I'm not going to shove a woman into a career that she doesn't want, or tell her that she can't do something that she wants to do, just because she is female.

As many people probably know, I am the queen of defying the "can't be done's". I have done everything in my power never to take extra scholarships, etc, just because I am a woman. I don't believe in it. We are all humans. When a job needs to be done, then the best human for the job should take it (yes, I am discriminating against bears, dogs and other animals).

If the situation exists where you are being told that you are not allowed to do something because you are female, then obviously you need to fight the system. But I find that to be very infrequent these days. A woman in engineering is unexpected, but not out of the ordinary. People may be surprised, but most won't fight it.

So congratulations to all of the humans, male and female, who are pursuing careers in and enjoy doing engineering.

I agree - whoever is most capable to do a job should do it, regardless of wheter they are male or female.

Originally Posted by RAWRimaPANDA

[2 cents]

Here is my opinion. ( switching off from point to point)

In engineering, sciences, etc. the reality is, they aren't many females out there. Why? Many reasons ranging from lack of interest or lack of exposure. Is it honestly bad to praise the few that are?

I do understand what you meant when you said that you didn't need the boys to step aside or give you special priveledges to work, because that is how it is for me on my team as well. I didn't go off and complan about not being given the oppurtunity, I walked into the shop and I watched and learned.
But again, you must note that there ARE teams out there out of the thousands that seem to push the girls away. Sometimes the girls are just shunned from the actual build and design.

As for "special treatment" for the women in engineering. It could be possible that scholarships meant for female engineers are there to encourage MORE females to go into the fields. It shows that there is appreciation and support for more female involvement in these subjects.
But when it comes to situations where the female is given the scholarship in oppose to a male just because of her gender, then yes I see a point there.

Overall, just note that sometimes praising female engineers isn't more of a "OMG A GIRL IS MACHINING!?" but more of a "That's good that more females are starting to grow an interest in engineering".

[/2 cents]

When guys(the students) step aside to let the girls do something they almost seem mocking and make the job seem really bad or not worth doing, I would prefer that they do it with the girl or find a way to keep everyone busy

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

[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.

[robostangs548]

Last year we had our first girl on the team in 3 years. At first everyone was really kind of unsure of how it would play out, but after the first week, she was showing us up for gosh sakes. She proved that she could definitely be a very strong addition to our team, and seeing that she was only a freshman, it really was amazing that she knew so much When we finally gave the whole "girl" scene a chance, it really paid off, and now everyone on the team is much more open to the female crowd, and having other female teammates. (Oh, BTW there are going to be around 10 MORE girls on the team for the 2008 season, but if they are like the girl we have now, they should fit right in with no problem.)

[FourPenguins]

I think there is definitely a stigma on our team about girls, but it's getting better. A girl I know spent three years on the multimedia team (often where girls get pushed) and then her fourth as a machinist/safety captain. She had a pretty strong personality, and I think that other girls haven't had the guts to just stand up and say, "I want to do this!"
Bottom line: girls shouldn't have to work any harder to do what they want. That one's a fault of the guys and the attitudes. A lot of them are unintentional and subconscious. It is harder to accept a girl as "just one of the guys," so to speak.
On the other hand, there's a stigma amongst girls too. I really don't want to believe that girls are "naturally" disinclined toward science, technology, machining, or robots. However, I think if you did a survey, many more girls would call this kind of thing boring, stupid, uninteresting, or (in the case of manual work) dirty. Why is this? Society, women included, has decided that women don't like this kind of thing.
Until we stop talking about "woman engineers" they will always be a novelty. By that I mean that they can't be a spectacle, a statistic, or a quota. They need to do this because they want to, and we (as a whole, women and men) need to accept them because of their skills and enthusiasm, not their gender.

[Stephi Rae]

I agree completely with all who have already said that it is degrading when people tell you that they are proud of your accomplishments because you are a girl, and there aren't enough women in the industry.

1983 is a rookie team, and we have three girls on the team. However, I was the only one who took an active role. One girl didn't show up until the last two meetings before our first regional, and the other had minimal participation and helped a (very) small amount with our practice chairman's award entry. I was responsible for the entire design and construction of our electrical system, as well as putting together our chassis and assisting with the drive train. Electronics have mildly interested me in the past, but now I can't wait to get started on next years bot! Messy wires is something that drives me crazy, and by the end of it all, with all the last minute changes we made on our bot (completely transforming from ramp bot to arm bot in the last 20 hours before ship) the wires got a little messy. I am proud to say though, that they are still more organized than most teams that I have seen.

Our school as a whole is a science, math and technology school in itself, so there is no lack of interest in the team (now). After we came home with a regional win in Las Vegas, almost all 270 some students that aren't on the team yet, are all begging to join. The issue about recruiting girls to the team is that our school itself is only about 20% female. Of our 18 FIRSTers, 3 are girls. That's already almost the same persentage of our school as a whole. Our recruiting, we have now realized, needs to come straight from the middle schools. We are a public school, but you have to apply to get in. We have recruiting teams that go out to the middle schools, but there isn't much robotics info going out. That's our next step in stepping up our game and becoming the best team we can be. Not just with recruiting girls, but with all the potential super nerds like us out there.

[1527Michiru]

Originally Posted by EvilMonkyPirate

I also have a different view on FIRST than most people. See I don't want to be an engineer.

This applies to me as well. I do not plan on becoming an engineer when i graduate. In fact, I want to be an artist.
Also, I'm the only girl on my team, and the Vice President.

I don't think that when people are "surprised" that you've put a robot together, they are trying to be insulting.
I would take it as a compliment.

Engineering has, traditionally, been male dominated. and that's a simple fact. People are very excited that so many girls are involved with FIRST, and they encourage more girls to join every year. they may be surprised because very few girls know their way around a robot, and are admiring your skills.

Things are slowly turning around. But, I know that I am treated with respect by my team because I came into the program last year knowing absolutely nothing about engineering. Now I at least know what the Numatics do.

Just keep in mind that FIRST really does appreciate girls who join the program.

~Casey

[Cooley744]

There are a few other girls on Shark Attack 744, but they mainly do survey or programming. Since the seniors of 07 graduated, I am the only girl that drives and does a lot of mechanical stuff. I think it is totally awesome because the guys on my team treat me the same. I work on the robot with them. When we have "tube fights", "poof ball dogeball", and games of ping pong, they are not going to treat me any differently then the rest of the guys. In fact, they have no problem pegging the ball at me. LOL. It's sorta hard to write this as how they guys and the girls specifically try to work together, because we never really think about it. It just comes natural. We are one team...and it's pretty cool.

[Aranjedeath]

On team 1678, we have three girls, and one of them is set to be the head mechanical person for this coming season. I'd have to say, that I'm quite glad when I see a girl who can break out of the stereo-types and build a robot that works, as It shows that things are moving, and peoples views are changing, if slowly, and more importantly, that there are women entering into engineering.

Our other two women on the team are our elected secretaries, and they're doing a fine job helping us corroborate everything between club leaders and everyone else on the team.

I, myself do the website, and at present thats a one man(in this case) undertaking, so yeah. I'd like very much to see women in all parts of the process, because irrelevant of what gender, skin color, creed or otherwise you could be classified into, your a person, and your useful. The main task at hand is getting people to join the club, and finding out what they're useful with, and using that.

Just my dime on things...

[Éowyn]

Well, I believe I can safely say that out of the two teams I've been on, I am the only girl who loves to live in the machine shop.
Most of the girls spring for spirit team, but it looks like I might have some feminine company in the shop next year. Strangely enough, I'm kinda disappointed. Part of me loves being the only girl in the machine shop, but the rational part says the more the merrier, we need more girls doing the technical aspect.

BTW, I think somebody said that the girls on their team "wig out" when they get their hands dirty. Let me just say that when I wash up for dinner, the sink turns a delightful shade of greasy grey/black.

[asher]

OK - so I haven’t posted in years, but I come back to read occasionally...

I did FIRST in high school and college; I was even an engineering major briefly.

One thing you have to understand is that most of these stereotypes you see now will never change and never go away. Even when someone says they will, or they treat you the same, somewhere in the back of their mind the thought will persist.

The only way you will get past it is to work hard and be the best at whatever you do, let your product speak for you so they have nothing to question. Don’t whine. Never complain. Above all do NOT boast about it.

That is my advice to you; take it for what it is worth.

"The old lady accountant"

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Otaku

In my eyes, there are very few limitations for people (these apply to everybody):

-You must know what you're doing.
-You must know what certain tools are used for/what tools you need (one of the freshmen asked me what a philips screwdriver was... I forcibly removed him from the shop. And yes, our team does training sessions to try and prevent this).
-You must keep a channel of communication open. (675 has had communication issues in past years, they were minimal this year, which is good)

Those first two don't sound too promising, if you plan to have team members with no prior experience (i.e. most high school students). Being able to satisfy those first two things requires a bit of context, a bit of intuition, and most notably, the ability to ask the right questions. But not having those things at the outset shouldn't be an impediment to having the opportunity to learn those things.

The freshman needs to know what needs to be done (this is distinct from the idiomatic 'he knows what he's doing'), how to perform it, and why this is the case. If he doesn't know, while it might technically be his responsibility to educate himself, it makes a whole lot more sense to give him whatever assistance it takes to make him understand, than it does to simply kick him out. Think of it as in investment in his future abilities. If you just kick him out every time he asks a dumb question—and is it actually dumb, considering the state of his expertise—what incentive does he have to continue to participate, and what good are you doing for him? Now he's not just wasting your time, you're wasting his.

Similarly, even experienced people don't always know some trivia regarding a tool. If I'd asked you to pass me a 3/8" R8 collet, would you have known what it was? (It's the thing you use in a Bridgeport-style mill to hold Ø3/8" cutting tools.) Odds are, if you'd told him "a Phillips screwdriver is the one with a four-pointed cross and a tapered tip", he'd have had both incentive and context to cement that piece of knowledge in his mind. And he probably knew already that such a thing existed, but didn't know its name. Instead, it seems that he earned a trip outside.

The third point is universally good advice, and probably the most difficult to implement. Communication isn't just telling the new members "this is a Phillips screw, this is a Robertson screw...", etc.; it involves responding to their particular questions and needs. If the freshman can't ask a simple question, then it seems that communication could stand to be improved.

[Kate00]

Originally Posted by Kelly

I, quite frankly, find it patronizing when people congratulate me for pursuing engineering because "there just aren't enough women in math and science." It makes me feel like they think my abilities are only noteworthy in the context of my gender, while I would like to think that I would be considered smart no matter who I was.
This is an issue I'm interested in, and I'm curious to hear insights from girls on other teams.

I'm not sure that's what people mean. I have seen this sort of comment made to girls on my team, and how we've always taken it is as follows.

Girls and boys should have equal opportunities, however, they should not be treated the same. Girls and boys think differently, have different learning styles, and process information in entirely different ways. Being in a room with a mixture of male and female engineers, and our female students, you can tell that they approach problems differently. I went from a co-ed middle school to an all-girls high school, and there is a marked difference in the learning styles. Our brains are different. This being said, a huge part of what my team tries to do in inspiring girls with this program is to not only give them equal opportunity, but to bring the different thinking, the different processing into the open. We believe that boys and girls can create really cool things separately, however, it's when both processing styles, both brains come together that you can create something truly amazing. We take the comments such as "there just aren't enough women in math and science" as compliments, that we're needed, our brains are needed. I don't think it has anything to do with basing intelligence only on comparisons with your own gender, it's a positive assessment of your choices and how you're bettering society by bringing a female perspective to a male-dominated field.

[Philip W.]

Originally Posted by Kelly

This thread: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=56504
I, quite frankly, find it patronizing when people congratulate me for pursuing engineering because "there just aren't enough women in math and science." It makes me feel like they think my abilities are only noteworthy in the context of my gender, while I would like to think that I would be considered smart no matter who I was.
This is an issue I'm interested in, and I'm curious to hear insights from girls on other teams.

When people congratulate you for pursuing engineering, they are not congratulating you on your abilities (not that your abilities are bad) but your decision to pursue engineering. Such a decision is definitely worth being proud of. For whatever reasons (which I can rationalize but will not mention), women are still intimidated by a career in science, math and technology, and engineering especially. You, and the many other women in FIRST, have deviated from the norm and jumped into a field dominated by men. This bravery deserves its congratulations.

[Jimmy Nichols]

I'm a third year mentor on Team 1038 and since I have been involved with the team, we have tried to increase our female membership each year. This year we reached 33% female membership and next year our entire leadership group will be females. The ones that I have personally worked with are strong leaders and I expect great things from them. I am looking forward to next year and seeing these young ladies take over the leadership of our team.