Last week on March 17th we held our (mostly) annual women in STEM event at the Greater Pittsburgh Regional (GPR)! After GPR was canceled the past 2 years due to COVID, we were very excited to be able to hold an in-person event once again! In 2020 we hosted a virtual panel. The video is available here.

Over 50 people attended this year’s GPR event, and our panelists consisted of mentors and students from teams 117 Steel Dragons (Audrey O. and Ursula B.), 3504 Girls of Steel (Amanda H. and Sarah W., mentor), 4085 Technical Difficulties (Madison G. and Nadine P., mentor), and 7460 Avi and Friends (Sydney G.). The panel was moderated by FIRST Ladies Director Samhita G. We talked about topics including our experiences as women in STEM, balancing school and robotics, productivity, and time management. It was really interesting to hear so many different perspectives, and we had a very productive discussion with audience participation as well!

It was so nice to be able to meet with so many ladies in FIRST and allies, and we learned a lot from each other. We can’t wait to hold the panel again next year! Please let us know if you’d like to represent your team as one of the panelists. We’d love to have you join us.

This week on March 24th at the Buckeye Regional we hosted a meetup and 3 other FRC teams joined us to eat lunch and talk about everything from our experiences in FIRST to our favorite parts of Buckeye so far. We had a ton of fun bonding and meeting new people!  Thank you to teams FRC 120, FRC 578, and FRC 4930! 

Contact us at ladiesinfirst@gmail.com for more information about FIRST Ladies and learn how to apply to be a regional partner.