In recent years, as the Middle School Robotics program has expanded, the number of teams and students in each one has differed. The Middle School Robotics team participates in the “First Lego League” (FLL) competition in the fall, as they have for around ten years. During the first few years of competing, the Middle School only had one team, which expanded to four teams for the ’18-’19 school year. In the ’18-’19 school year, there were 28 students — and only two of them were girls. 

Adam Colestock, fourth through eighth grade STEAM Integration and Coding Teacher, is the coordinator of the Middle School Robotics team. As Colestock thought about how the teams would be organized this year, he hoped to increase involvement among the girls. “As MS Robotics grew, we had a few girls on teams along the way, but it definitely grew faster in terms of the numbers among boys than girls,” Colestock said. “Our sense was, from talking to kids and observing, that for some it was uncomfortable to walk through the door onto a team that consisted mostly of boys.”

“I’m really into coding and robotics, and was very excited to join this year, and then I was informed that there would be an all girls team and I decided I wanted to join that,” sixth grader and member of the all-girls robotics team Zoe Hirsch said. “I was excited because I know that this will inspire more girls to join robotics, and that is important because not enough young women take on coding and robotics jobs in the world.”

In the FLL, teams must be between three and eight people — last year the teams were separated by grade, with two sixth grade teams, one seventh grade team, and one eighth grade team. “If we limit teams to be grade specific, then we are likely to end up with more teams, and we have a limited number of coaches and meeting times,” Colestock said.

This year, Colestock is giving girls a choice to either be on an all-girls team, or on a co-ed team. Girls on both the co-ed teams and on the all-girls team expressed a willingness to participate on either a girls team or a co-ed team.“There’s no difference in terms of the competitions that teams compete in,” Colestock said. “We just have multiple teams now, because we have so many participating, so we decided to provide the option to participate on an all-girls team.”

The plan for this year is to have four teams. With 37 participants, there are 10 girls participating — 7 of which are on the all-girls rookie team (which consists of sixth graders who are doing FLL for the first time). The other three teams are students mixed among the three grades. 

Colestock notes that the reason for the all-girls team is to encourage female participation. “We are not separating out based on gender identification because we think there is a difference in ability,” Colestock said. “We believe and scientific research supports that boys and girls are equally capable of succeeding academically and doing all of the teamwork and problem solving that goes into being on an FLL team… we just think there may be some girls that feel more comfortable joining an all-girls team.”

As a member of the all-girls Upper School ROV Robotics Team, senior Sophie Besold agrees that an all girls team is beneficial. “Having a girls team is super beneficial because the majority of the people on the team had no experience with robotics, and throughout middle school I didn’t do it because it’s really hard to go into a field that’s all boys,” Besold said. “It’s my third year now, and I am all about science and STEM in a way that I wasn’t before, just because a lot of it came from being surrounded by girls.”

Although the Robotics program has just begun for the year, Colestock has already noticed a positive outcome. “The number of girls coming out definitely has increased this year,” Colestock said. 

“It’s a really good thing to have in Middle School because you are so vulnerable, and you are trying to learn new things, and it doesn’t help to have an intimidating environment,” Besold said.