IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2015 - 36

Student materials from the 2013 FLL Championship tournament, held at JMU.

teams or mixed. Interestingly, Berger
notes that, across the board, single-gender girls' teams tend to do better than allboys' teams. "Girls tend to build simpler,
cleaner robots that do what they need to
without being overdone," she says. "Girls
are usually more focused, especially compared to 11- and 12-year-old boys, who
get distracted easily or put every piece of
LEGO they own on a robot."
The co-ed teams distribute more
evenly, with roughly just as many teams
having girl leaders as boy leaders, and
encouragement for each other exists
across genders. In one example, Berger
recounts, "I spoke with a coach in my
area who had nine boys and one girl on
the team. Initially, the girl only wanted to
do the research project and t-shirt design,
but the boys made her try programming
the robot and it turns out that she was
the best programmer on the team."
Learning new skills-and learning
about one's own abilities-is part of the
excitement of FLL. "I love watching the
kids as they're figuring out some of this
stuff, going from the 'I have no idea how
to program a robot' mentality to actually doing it, sometimes in minutes," says
Berger. Kolvoord seconds the notion of
combined skill and personal development
outside of a purely academic environment, "By participating, students get a
chance to touch global problems and to
start to struggle with them and apply

IEEE women in engineering magazine

out of FLL at 14, there are the FIRST
what they've learned in school." Plus, he
Tech Challenge and FIRST Robotics
adds, "because much of what you do in
Competition, both of which continue to
school is individual, here the kids have a
draw on the applications of STEM in a
chance to work as a team on a non-sports
team challenge environment. For older
event. It's about the team success, and
students, these two competitions also
we've seen examples over the years of
offer scholarships for which students can
teams who are able to come together and
apply regardless of whether they pursue
become much greater than the sum of
a STEM course of study in college.
their parts."
Whatever the age range or subject
The team mentality carries over into
matter of choice for students, FLL
the program volunteers and
is poised to keep growing as
administrators, which
"I
an extracurricular activis partly what keeps
love watching
ity. With the challengBerger coming back
the kids as they're
es becoming more
year after year.
universal (2014's
"It's pretty much
figuring out some of this
a family," she
stuff, going from the 'I have education theme
was preceded by
says. "I have a lot
no idea how to program a
natural disasters
of friends that do
robot' mentality to actually in 2013 and senior
this and there's a
doing it, sometimes
citizen solutions in
real community
2012), the applicaaspect, where we
in minutes," says
tion on a global scale
see a lot of the same
Berger.
is increasingly important.
coaches for years." BeWith the wide-ranging relcause adults can particievancy of the problems to solve,
pate in a variety of ways, from
students are likely to find the real-world
the fairly substantial time commitment
applications, the team and community
of coaching to running a one-day event
building environment, and-perhaps
or judging a regional tournament, the inmost importantly-the fun of the tasks at
volvement can be tailored to fit the abilihand, exciting for years to come.
ties and schedule of the volunteer.
For students, there are continual op-Leslie Prives
portunities as well. Prior to joining FLL,
there is Junior FLL, which started in
2004 for students ages 6-9. After aging

june 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2015