Posted by Jessica Boucher. [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]
Student on team #237, Sie-H2O-Bots, from Watertown High School and Eastern Awning Systems & The Siemon Company.
Posted on 10/9/2000 3:29 PM MST
Afternoon, everyone…I usually post when I’m lacking sleep (maybe thats why I’ll post something & look back on it & ask myself ‘I wrote that?!?’), but now that I’m fully rested, maybe what I say will sound a little more like what I wanted to say.
Anyway, Erin gave me the perfect opening to what I wanted to post on here for a while. I would like to introduce to you a fairly new email group, called the Robot Chicks Union, or RCU for short.
It is not a union in the strictest sense, but in more the sense of a coalition of females from robotics teams who join together to relate to eachother and voice their mind on different issues concerning their lives and its impact by FIRST. This group keeps in contact with eachother via the Internet and eGroups, a free mailing list service where if one person sends an email to the address of the group, that email gets forwarded to every person on the list, to which other members can reply to, and so forth.
The RCU is a fairly new coalition, created by myself from Team 237 and Kristen Kelso from Team 131. In its three months of existence, we have acquired 40 members from 18 teams, and we are inviting new members weekly.
I would like to state that the RCU was created for girls in robotics teams to help eachother out, especially girls on teams where they are in the minority. They need this support system more than anyone, and being a part of the RCU makes them feel more confident, for they now know that there are girls from all over the country going through the same things they are.
It is also important to state that the RCU is not a negative faction against males in robotics teams (or anyone, for that matter). Part of the ethics of the RCU is to always turn a negative into a positive.
I am inviting all females in robotics teams to join the RCU. You can visit our website at www.robot-chicks-union.org (made by our lovely webchick, Lora). Thanks for listening and I’m open to any questions/comments regarding the matter.
-Jessica Boucher, T237
Co-moderator, Robot Chicks Union
I have told people for a long time that FIRST is not just about robots…Now I can also say that RCU isn’t just about a group of girls! Thank you Jess for starting such a great group!