Battle of Brookfield: How Team Hazmat Brought Women in STEM to Life

FTC Team 13201 Hazmat hosted our Battle of Brookfield Annual qualifier (BOBA) on February 7th, 2026. To show our commitment to gender equality in STEM, we invited our guest speaker, Dr. Zhu Li, the Chief Technology Officer of the Global MRI Business at GE HealthCare, who shared personal reflections on being one of the only - and often youngest - women in the room, and we also hosted a Women In Technology and Science career fair (WITS).

During the opening ceremony, Dr. Zhu Li reflected on her experience. She told us that she, too, at times, felt like she didn’t belong, yet emphasized that those feelings should never limit what we believe that we can achieve.   She shared how it is important to foster curiosity, especially in young minds such as ours. Her message encouraged all of us to pursue our goals with confidence, nurture our curiosity, and continue to explore whatever inspires us. 

We also held a Women in Technology and Science (WITS) Career Fair. There, we invited companies with women with jobs in the STEM field to set up tables, and eight eventually came. We planned the event layout in advance and also created a fun activity where students earned stickers by asking questions at each company table to win free boba. After the career fair, we held a panel discussion where we asked the women questions about their careers and invited students to ask their own questions. Everyone from the different companies brought in really cool demos; for example, GE HealthCare had a robotic dog that could wave, which helped make people more interested in the fair. After this, we also held a WITS Career panel discussion, where we asked them questions about their careers, what they did in high school to prepare, and other useful tips. We then had some allotted time for other students to ask questions as well. Our career fair was extremely successful because it gave everyone at our school a chance to interact with women working in different STEM and tech fields and learn about their professional experiences. Even though initially it was mainly to get girls interested in STEM, it turned out to be a way to get many people start thinking about future careers in the STEM field. 

We showed our support for gender equality through our guest speaker and our career fair. The career fair opened the eyes of many people, even in the FLL teams. It showed girls that they, too, could be in a STEM field/ profession, and showed older students how they could plan their high school careers to help them be better prepared for their future. We learned a lot from both of these events, and we also hope that the people who attended these events learned something new as well.