Girls in Gear©

FRC Test Drive Learn About FTC FTC Arena FRC Tour Presentation Girls in Gear Panelists

On November 14, 2009, Team 341 held the second annual Girls in Gear©, a Girl Scout STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education program, at Ramp Riot. There were six stations set up at Girls in Gear©, including FRC robot driving, FRC robot parts, observing the FRC and FTC competitions, a demonstration by the organization STEM Robotics, and an area where girls had the chance to talk to women in STEM careers. Our enthusiastic female speakers panel represented a variety of engineering disciplines including a Mechanical Engineer (Cobham Sensor Systems), Process Engineer (Dow Chemical Company), Software Engineer (DeVry University), and Quality Engineer (Johnson & Johnson). Tours were also available to troops in the afternoon.

Girls in Gear Participation Badge

In just two years, the Girls in Gear© program has introduced over 120 girls, ages 5-14, to technology careers. We have also gotten positive feedback from our community. One troop leader stated that, "I thought the program was well put-together... There was a good variety of hands-on workshops for the girls." A parent with an older girl said that they attended Girls in Gear©, "for fun, connections, Gold Award, college hunting, and career planning." Upon leaving, we gave each girl a parent education document that described avenues to continue to promote informal science/technology learning experiences for their children.

In August of 2009 we released a kit of materials whose purpose was to help teams conduct Girls in Gear© in conjunction with local robotics events. We have posted the white pages for this kit on Chief Delphi and are looking forward to helping teams across the country run the Girls in Gear© Program.