VEX IQ Team 2501Z Girl Powered Essay
skoletzke
Entry ID #: 7565
Created: Sun, Jan 12, 2020 12:02 AM
Girl Power Strengthen Teams We are 2501Z The Narwhals. We have been a team for three years now and we have two boys, Nick and Kyler and two girls, Grace and Chloe on our team. We are doing this online challenge because we believe that girl power has been a really important part of our team and it has made our team the way it is today. Our team first got together two years ago. Our robotics program was very small at the time with only three teams with four people on each team. There were only four girls total. We started going to tournaments and started wondering why it was so rare to see other girls. We began to wonder if we should stick with it. Our coach then showed us a girl power video. After watching the video it got us thinking that just because we are girls, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do robotics. Girl Power gave us the confidence to know that we can be just as good as boys in robotics. We then realized that we as girls in Vex Robotics need to spread the word that girls can be just as successful and smart as boys. It showed us that we need to encourage other girls to not be afraid to show their talents. One way we have helped spread the word and increase girls' interest in robotics is we invited a Girl Scout troop to our lab. We taught them how to build a base, program it to drive, and then we let them drive the base they built and programmed. We also did a community outreach and put on a robot camp. This year in our program we have five teams, twenty members and eleven of them are girls. We have only been to 3 tournaments so far and we have noticed that the ratio of boy to girl is now pretty even. We have even seen some teams with all girls, including one of the teams in our program. Both of the girls on our team have busy schedules. Along with robotics, they're involved in many activities including cheer, soccer, volleyball, basketball, and piano. They sometimes find it difficult to attend all the tournaments but they really believe in the girl power initiative which keeps them motivated to continue to participate in all the robotics events. They realized the Girl Power initiative is not limited just to robotics, it also has an immense impact on all of their activities and how they feel about their future. Being exposed to Girl Power through robotics has helped our team gain confidence by helping us believe in ourselves about things that we never thought we would have a chance of doing in the future. Before we started robotics we didn’t think we were that smart and we thought that the dreams we had weren’t possible of coming true. But now that we’ve been doing Vex IQ for 3 years it’s made us believe more in ourselves and each other about our future and what we’re capable of doing. With all of our diverse ideas, having boys and girls on our team, we have combined them all to create our robot and we have become very successful this year. Thanks to Girl Power, we have realized that with all the diversity in everyone’s ideas and personalities, it is what makes up our team. In conclusion, Girl Power and robotics has had an impact on all of our team members including the boys and the girls. It has had an impact on not only robotics but other activities in our lives and how we feel about our future. We all feel very confident in how we will achieve our goals in our futures. We believe that with diversity comes better ideas and perspectives and that is what allows a team in robotics to become stronger. Credits Team 2501Z – The Narwhals (Jr. Jacket Robotics) Entrants: Grace Strong - 8th Grade Nick Berg - 8th Grade Chloe Koletzke - 8th Grade Kyler Myer - 8th Grade Title of Submission: Girl Power Strengthen Teams
