I have been doing robotics for nearly a decade now, so I have a lot of experience with FIRST. Robotics has always been one of my favorite activities that I’ve gotten to participate in. It’s been a space where I could exercise my problem-solving and critical thinking skills while also engaging my creativity. I started out in 3rd grade on an FLL team with me, my best friend, and a handful of random boys. That year was fun, but I really found my place in an all-girls team I joined the next year. That team grew and changed, eventually moving to FTC, with members coming and going, but it was consistently a place of joy and learning.
Before I realized it, robotics had become a constant in my life. I was committed from elementary all the way through high school. There were definitely ups and downs, but I always managed to work through it, often going through the highs and lows as a team.
One of my favorite memories from robotics happened right around a year ago. We’d been having a rough day at a tournament, with parts breaking left and right and low morale. We had gotten through rounds and were waiting for Alliance Selection, so we decided to do a major revamp of our arm as a last-ditch effort to see if we could fix it. The team had gotten together before heading to the selection that if we didn’t fix it in time, we would say no to any alliance offers. We sent one of our members off to selection to represent the team while we finished our repairs:
Re-attach the arm. Tighten a few more screws. Plug in the servos.
Plug in the controllers to test it.
Aaaaaand…
…
…
It worked!!
We immediately rushed off to let our representative know. We sprinted into the gymnasium with big grins and thumbs up to let her know we had fixed it and were good to go! I, of course, then proceeded to trip and fall on the stairs of the bleachers hard enough to get the attention and concern of the announcer, but it was a good moment nonetheless. We were the second pick for an alliance and even made it to State that tournament. That’s not why I love that memory, though. It’s one of my favorite memories because it was an instance when our team truly came together. We not only came together physically to fix the arm, but we also came together in a moment of joy and celebration that buoyed our deflated morale and carried us through the remainder of the tournament. Those moments are the reason I’ve kept with robotics for so long. It’s not the awards or the competitions; it’s the camaraderie and sense of joy that can be found in the small moments.
It’s not always sunshine and rainbows, though. While the vast majority of people in FIRST programs are lovely and a joy to work with, some are not. There have been times when I’ve been made to feel less than, and it often felt to be on account of me being a woman, though it was never explicitly stated. I was working with another team, which is no longer a part of FIRST, for unrelated reasons, and there was a very obvious difference between how their coach treated their team and ours. For reference, we had nearly the exact same amount of experience as their team, were only a year younger, and even achieved similar levels of awards. The only significant difference was that our team was all female, and theirs was all male. Their coach, and to some extent, the team, too, was very condescending. There were also some less-than-respectful comments about our (female) coach’s non-STEM education.
That was one of the few times where I felt not only singled out for my gender but also disrespected because I was a woman. It’s not an experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but it helped me be more prepared for something like that to happen again. My advice to other women in robotics would be to judge yourself on your own scale. Don’t let others tell you what you are or aren’t good at. As women, especially in a space like robotics, we are more likely to receive unnecessary or unwanted feedback. It is okay not to be perfect and to recognize that, so compare yourself to your goals and in the context of your improvements. You should be the judge of your skill, not others.
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