Quincy Girl Powered
quincygirlsrobotics2017
Entry ID #: 4273
Created: Wed, Nov 22, 2017 3:19 PM
Our team thinks the Girl Powered initiative is an important one that empowers teen girls to dabble in STEM, more importantly it shows us that even though us women are underrepresented in STEM but with everyone's overall push towards enough representation with girls in STEM we all feel more inclusive with the efforts many groups like Girl Powered try. Girl powered in our words is women empowerment, a push for inclusiveness in STEM, especially in robotic. Girl Powered gives our team a moral boost, showing us that it's great that we're doing this when this is a male dominant field. Last year in Quincy's team consisted of 4 boys and 1 girl, and compare it to this year's team with 5 boys and 15 girls. Our team has drastically improved, our team is definitely full of girls who are here to show everyone that even though this is a male dominant field that we will not be intimidated, but we are intrigued with the challenge at hand. The reason in which our group is so inclusive for girls especially is because at first there was maybe 5 girls trying out, but then friends would invite other friends and our group expanded over time. Everyone on our team has a designated job, but we don't just stick to one job, we switch around. For example, our team captain Alexis, not only does she code but she helps build, facilitates our team, and occasionally draws a design or two. IN our team we do have jobs but it gives us lots of freedom to try out different things. But this doesn't mean you can't stick to just one thing, a lot of people do stick to one job, because they like it. What I'm trying to say is that with us you won't be ostracized for trying new things but you wouldn't be the sore thumb out if you stayed doing one thing. For example, Rocio, Elena and Tamara, they stick to scribing and taking care of our notebook. While Janicsia, Jenni, Maribel, Destiny stick to driving. Luz, Ruby, Evelyn, Zayuri, Anahi, and Nora are all mostly building. Finally, for programming there's Alexis and Nora. For online challenges there's Nora and Luz. Through this experience not only did we learn what we were good at, but also, we learned how much work it took to do the different jobs, so we had more patience with each other because building robots isn't easy. Diversity is vital and changes the design proactively, the mood of the group, and especially how we succeed. Luckily for our team we have lots of diversity. There's lots of dynamic and energy throughout the room. We have the loud funny girls, the serious hard-working girls, and the shy girls. But there aren't "cliques" everyone here is friendly and everyone talks to each other and have fun together. We have fun while getting work done, but if we only had the fun people we wouldn’t be getting the work done that we are finishing. My STEM role model would be Ellen Ochoa. She was the first Hispanic woman in the world to go to space. This happened in 1993 and since 2012 she was promoted to director for Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. There she is also the first Hispanic woman director, and the second woman director. She has a school named after her in Pasco, Washington which is only 2 hours from where I live. On top of this Ochoa is an alumnus from Stanford, which is a very good school, one of my dream schools. I look up to her because of how successful she is working in STEM, and also being an astronaut. Ochoa was twice a valedictorian which is amazing and I want to follow her footsteps. Knowing that she was able to go so far up in a STEM career, while bieng a woman, and Hispanic.
