Passionate Smart Girls are Enacting Change through FIRST — and the World is Watching
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) motivates young people to pursue education and career opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math, while building self-confidence, knowledge, and life skills. But FIRST is not only encouraging young people’s participation in science and technology, it is also inspiring participants to use their STEM-skills to make a difference. Meet some outstanding young women from the FIRST Community who have been using their voices for positive change:
Sarai Ramos: I have always been interested in engineering but I didn’t know if I could do it until I worked up the courage to join my high school’s FIRST Robotics Competition team, The Mechanical Mustangs. As a member of the team, I’ve been able been able to work with real engineers and learn it’s possible for me to be one too. Our “Catching Feelings: Let’s Talk About It” campaign has given me the chance to combine my interest in engineering and tech with my passion to help raise awareness and support for teens who are suffering from depression and other mental illnesses. To build this campaign, we started with the fact that we are a generation attached to our phones. So, raising visibility and improving communication on tough subjects like mental health needs to be very fluent on this platform. We also wanted to make it feel light and fun to share feelings. With the support of DonorsChoose.org and the Born This Way Foundation, we created a photobooth experience where over 150 students of various backgrounds took photos using emoji signs to show different emotions. We anonymously displayed their submissions along with a suicide prevention hotline number, and are exploring how we might assemble mental health professionals to donate their time to people who need it.
It’s been a really meaningful project to be a part of, and I’m hoping it helps more teens talk about their feelings. I hope to continue making a difference while studying to be a mechanical or biomedical engineer. I think it’s so important for girls to have the confidence to build a robot, program an app, or apply to NASA. Girls who build, code, design, and fabricate are cool!
Saanya Bhargava: My experience on a FIRST robotics team has given me valuable life skills like collaboration, problem solving, and tenacity, for which I am extremely grateful. The experience has also exposed me to the challenges women face in STEM fields. As a girl on a male-dominated FIRST Tech Challenge team my freshman year, I was often assigned less essential or non-technical roles. It frustrated me because others were not willing to see my full capabilities and I almost quit the team. However, I decided to stick the course and face this challenge head on. I recognized that FIRST was more than just robots; it is about the impact that a team can have on the community around them. I decided to take on the outreach efforts for the team, an aspect of FIRST that I immediately fell in love with. Now, on our school’s varsity FIRST Robotics Competition team, I co-lead our outreach sub-team and am the only girl representing the team in our outreach presentation to judges. Through this experience, I have recognized the importance of playing to my strengths, standing up for myself, and to not letting other’s biases get in the way of reaching my full potential. I truly understand how girls can feel marginalized if they don’t find a supportive community or role models in STEM fields because I felt the same way. There is a “leaky pipeline” in STEM fields where women are constantly facing signals that they don’t belong, and I feel it is my responsibility to nurture this pipeline.
I also divide my time between two other organizations I have cofounded: STEM Advocacy Conference of Texas (SACOT), which advocates for government funding of STEM education in underserved communities; and impact.gravitas, a youth organization dedicated to raising awareness and developing collaborative solutions to the growing problem of plastic pollution. This organization is staffed mostly by young women and is driving significant action projects to reduce the use of single-use plastics at my school and in my community. I plan on continuing my passion in robotics and environmental science with a career in Biological Sciences to help solve real-world problems in human health and environmental well-being. I would tell other Smart Girls who are interested in tech but intimidated by the gender gap to not act on that reactionary impulse to walk away and quit. Have the confidence and strength to persist because you belong!
Allie Weber: I first starting making and inventing things when I was six years old, in the first grade. I wanted to make a robot for the science fair, and I ended up making a robot out of all recycled materials. The robot had wheels on the bottom so you could roll it around, its head popped off for storage, and its hands could open and close with a simple lever system so it could hold stuff. I ended up winning the science fair that year, and a doll company saw it and decided to use it as inspiration for a new line of STEM dolls. I joked about it, saying that it was an action figure of me! I made an all-recycled materials doll house for it and created tutorials online about how to make an “Eco Build A Home.” After that, I continued to enter the science fair with my different innovations like the Gorilla Soccer Helper — a pendulum-style soccer trainer — and my Frost Stoppers, which were temperature-sensing gloves that could sense when you were about to get frostbite.
I’m 12 now, and I feel really lucky to have gotten involved in the FIRST LEGO League and be honored by Teen Vogue in its 21 under 21 Girls Class of 2017. I try to encourage people through my YouTube Channel, which is called Tech-nic-Allie Speaking. It’s a channel that does tech toy reviews, showcases some of my innovations, and has how-to videos. I try to get people into making by showing them that it’s not all numbers and blueprints — it can also be just throwing stuff together to make something cool that you can use. I want other kids like me, especially girls, to feel empowered to make things that can be really valuable. When I think about my future, I think I want to get a great job that can balance all my inventive skills. Most of the jobs that I think will exist in the future don’t exist yet, so it’s hard to try to figure out a job that I can have at this point. I think it would be fun to start my own company with all my innovations and continue to help other people innovate too!
Click here to learn more and register teams for the upcoming 2019 season of FIRST! #FIRSTLaunch2019
