Meet Technical Difficulties, FRC 4085

We are Reynoldsburg High School’s Technical Difficulties robotics team. Our team was created in 2011 and we have been exceeding expectations and growing ever since. Our team has faced many challenges and passed every obstacle in our path. We work every year to make our season better than our last, build our team closer and work harder in order to make our team better in every way. Each new season consists of many new members replacing old spots and filling in new ones. We have changed our subteam layouts and added/removed different groups or switched some duties around. As of right now, we have 7 main subteams; Mechanical, Electrical, Software, Business, Outreach, Media, and Design. We also have two other smaller subteams; Tactical and FabLab. Each of these groups has one or more leaders who split up certain tasks between themselves and their subteam members. Each subteam consists of a certain amount of members, typically ranging anywhere from two to sometimes six or seven--depending on the subteam. This season we have begun splitting up tasks more evenly between subteams and branching out to more specific assignments for each member. Along with this, all of our main leaders are students as well. This year we have two main managers, each with a different focal point of the team. We typically have about 50 members for the managers to guide and look after. Apart from the managers we have a few mentors and coaches to make sure everything is running smoothly, but other than that, the students do all of the work.
A lot of our team members, managers and mentors are also girls! We value a diverse STEM education on the team, which includes the women in our community.
As a girl on 4085, I feel as if our team is inclusive in the best sense as there is no difference in how I am treated versus how a boy would be treated on the team. There are plenty of other girls that I interact with on the team. We are not viewed as solely girls, but as team members that have the same abilities as anyone else.  Since there’s so many other girls on the team, I also feel as though there is a really great opportunity to make friends with other ladies in the school district. I’ve gotten to connect with more girls that are in different friend groups, different social scenarios than me, that I would not have got to meet otherwise.
Other situations that I have been in the past that deal with engineering in robotics (classes, clubs, etc) have made me feel as though I don’t know as much as a boy. However, I have never felt that way with 4085. Whenever I ask questions, anybody who knows about the topic is allowed to speak up, not just a boy who appears “wiser.” I also have never been told any sexist comments about how I don’t know what anything is because of my gender. Although it is the bare minimum, it makes my experience on the team much more comfortable than any other one I’ve had.
I also like how our team highlights the women on it. For example, we get many opportunities to speak up about how we feel on the team. We have surveys, we get opportunities to write blog posts such as these, and we get to speak about it in FIRST impact as well. 4085 highlights our ladies, and personally it makes me feel very loved.

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