FIRSTlikeAGirl initiative - 2079 ALARM Robotics

FIRSTlikeAGirl initiative

FIRSTlikeaGirl initiative was started by FRC 1868 Space Cookies. Since then many FRC teams like us have joined this initiative and become ambassadors.

2079 is a huge supporter and promoter of FIRSTlikeAGirl. We currently have 9 female team members on our team, which is roughly 26% of our team strength.

We have recruited 4 more female mentors in the past 3 seasons. Notably, we got a female FIRST Alum and mentor specifically because she liked that we were working on bridging this systemic gap. Her name is Heather Conway, and she is a material science scientist at ThermoFisher Scientific. LINK

Heather Conway standing with Members of the 4H ALARM FRC Robotics Team

We participated in the Merrimack Mayhem- offseason event and we were training new girls to be drivers and FIRST of New Hampshire shared our post. LINK.

We have created a FIRSTLikeAGirl video playlist featuring many of female students and mentors to share their experiences in FIRST. We want young girls to see themselves in robotics and technology and confidently step into FIRST.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-gjL9UsERR5SDnV0oGMtpk5Z5xnkOtg7&feature=shared

We participated in a 'only girl drivers- FRC event called 'Girls Behind the Glass' with the entire drive team being girls. LINK

Our 'Only Girl Drivers' Team

We are doing multiple things to encourage girls on our team. We encourage middle and elementary age girls to participate and learn technology programs though our outreach.

1st place award winner at our annual Scratch Hackathon 2024 at Mansfield Library

These three girls got an award

These two girls got an award

Read the comment in the post by a parent who has an elementary school girl on one of our FLL Explore teams-'thank you for working to close the gap'

We have encouraged many girl students to join our FLL Explore teams.