Girls Who Code College loop in collaboration with Georgia State University will design and develop a program called GROW, that will provide collaborative project-based learning opportunities for female GSU students with a goal to develop and sustain one or multiple competitive all-women robotics teams.

Dr. Ashwin Ashok, who is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at Georgia State University, is initiating a plan that uses robotics to create a pipeline for women students to enter and be successful in this field.

Ada Lovelace was the first ever programmer, and yet recent facts show that only 25% of the computing workforce are females (NCWIT report,2019). It is no secret that gender inequality has seeped into the system and is a common problem in the technology workforce today. While the reasons for the gap are diverse and subjective to different environments, we believe this is high time that we build more encouragement of women into STEM, improve workplace experiences for women and provide substantial support for women in technology for their sustenance and success.

The proposed GROW (GSU Robotics for Women) program at Georgia State University, in collaboration with the GSU Girls Who Code (GWC), will provide a collaborative (mentored and peer) support network and confidence for women college students to participate and experience STEM through robotics. This well aligns with the proposition voiced by Prof. Paula Gabbert (pioneer member of the ACM Council) who states that having supporting female role models, mentoring, and community building are positive practices in order to seal the gender gap (NCWIT). In particular, the GROW program highlights the following synergy with focal points of NCWIT:

( A ) Importance of female tech clubs in colleges to increase women in the workforce,

( B ) Women who are taught to confide on their strengths/abilities are likely to perform on-par or better than men professionally (grades/work)

GROW will be executed through five key words: Sisterhood, Create, Volunteer, Collaborate, and Inspire. GROW will be able to accomplish these goals by showing through evidence, by project based and competitive learning, how a subset of the technology field such as robotics can achieve a CREATE-FOR-GOOD goal for real-world problems.

Other References

https://www.ncwit.org/sites/default/files/resources/ncwit_acm_effortstomakecsmoreinclusiveofwomen_dec2016.pdf

In essence, GROW will be executed as a series of workshops that will provide course materials that share interest, engage, and educate our members. Through GWC teaching practices and close-knit sisterhood, Georgia State will help encourage and support women in technology.

When thinking of a Computer Scientist, a typical image comes to mind, and in most cases, it is not a woman. Sadly, with facts that show only 25% of the computing workforce are females (2015, NCWIT), it is hard to challenge the fact that women just do not enjoy programming. However, when pulling the curtains back on the tech industry, factors of gender inequity come in to play a role in the low statistics of women computing. That is due to less encouragement in STEM, workplace experience, and lack of support (NWIT).

GROW, GSU Women’s Robotics program, gives a collaborative support network and confidence to participating women. As a pioneer member of the ACM Council, Paula Gabbert explains that having supporting female role models, mentoring, and community building are positive practices in order to seal the gender gap(NCWIT).

Although more and more women are going to the workforce than ever, decreasing percentages of women in the field shows the importance of female tech clubs in colleges. Furthermore, girls are taught to question their abilities, and are far more likely than men to lose the confidence that is required for earning exceeding grades(NCWIT). However, through the partnership of Girls Who Code and GROW, we will dismiss these feelings by including Gabbert's vision on how we can support women throughout their Computer Science studies.

To achieve this goal, GWC will execute 5 key words: Sisterhood, Create, Volunteer, Collaborate, and Inspire. In return GROW will be able to accomplish these words by showing how Robotics can change the future for good. GROW will be a series of workshops that will provide course materials that share interest, engages, and educates our members.

Through GWC teaching practices and close-knit sisterhood, Georgia State will help encourage and support women in technology.

Girls Who Code College Loop will implement GROW’s schedule plan and center around challenges that will follow five resolutions which are volunteering, sisterhood, creating, collaborating, and inspiring. Girls Who Code will connect with women in Computer Science fields, build community, expand their Computer Science experiences, and use community organizing tactics to empower women in Computer Science on college campuses. To further promote retention and success in the field, College Loops is a group that seeks networking, learning to code, and sisterhood. To do this, we will do stimulating activities that make us imagine a new way of thinking about Computer Science.

GROW (Schedule plan):

Stage 1: TRAIN: (On-going) Create a Girls Who Code club at Georgia State University and activate from Aug 2019. The club will aim at building weekly technical activities for training women in fundamental concepts of engineering and programming robots. Activities will include basic Arduino and Raspberry Pi programming to working on robotics.

Stage 2: BUILD: Fall 2020-Summer 2021: The next step will initialize with a selection of a cohort of 10-15 students who have shown an ardent interest in continuing through a two-year robotics program and also have qualified through all the exercises in stage 1. The organizing team, along with the cohort, will focus on a single robotics project for a year. The project will involve building an actual novel robot that will address a fundamental environmental issue.

Stage 3: COMPETE: Fall 2021-Summer 2022: The ultimate goal of the proposed robotics initiative is to build an all women GSU robotics team that can compete internationally in a robotics competition. Efforts will entirely be placed on updating and testing the robot for the competition and taking part in a national or international competition.

A successful completion of the 3-year plan will imply a natural renewal of the plan over the next 3 years. However, considering that the training can be conducted periodically, the Phases will be executed with a yearly overlap. In each semester, the GROW group will meet online and together in the Exlab makerspace at GSU.

Girls Who Code College Loop will implement GROW’s schedule plan and center around challenges that will follow five resolutions which are volunteering, sisterhood, creating, collaborating, and inspiring. Girls Who Code will connect with women in Computer Science fields, build community, expand their Computer Science experiences, and use community organizing tactics to empower women in Computer Science on college campuses. To further promote retention and success in the field, College Loops is a group that seeks networking, learning to code, and sisterhood. To do this, we will do stimulating activities that make us imagine a new way of thinking about Computer Science.

GROW (Schedule plan):

Stage 1: TRAIN: (On-going) Create a Girls Who Code club at Georgia State University and activate from Aug 2019. The club will aim at building weekly technical activities for training women in fundamental concepts of engineering and programming robots. Activities will include basic Arduino and Raspberry Pi programming to working on robotics.

Stage 2: BUILD: Fall 2020-Summer 2021: The next step will initialize with a selection of a cohort of 10-15 students who have shown an ardent interest in continuing through a two-year robotics program and also have qualified through all the exercises in stage 1. The organizing team, along with the cohort, will focus on a single robotics project for a year. The project will involve building an actual novel robot that will address a fundamental environmental issue.

Stage 3: COMPETE: Fall 2021-Summer 2022: The ultimate goal of the proposed robotics initiative is to build an all women GSU robotics team that can compete internationally in a robotics competition. Efforts will entirely be placed on updating and testing the robot for the competition and taking part in a national or international competition.

A successful completion of the 3-year plan will imply a natural renewal of the plan over the next 3 years. However, considering that the training can be conducted periodically, the Phases will be executed with a yearly overlap. In each semester, the GROW group will meet online and together in the Exlab makerspace at GSU.

Even with high penetration into our daily lives, robotics still holds many challenges towards involvement of women in this field. The recent success story of the Girls Robotics team that won a championship in Europe is inspiring, however, the fact that the team had to tread a lot of impediments is a clear indication of the persisting issues and that women will only face more of such challenges in the future. As a step towards improving inclusion and advancement of women in engineering and computing, Dr. Ashok, who is a faculty in the Department of Computer Science at Georgia State University, is initiating a plan that uses robotics to create a pipeline for women students to enter and be successful in this field.

The proposed program, called GROW (GSU Robotics for Women) is a 3-phase plan to be executed in 3 year cycles of TRAIN, BUILD and COMPETE as described below:

Phase 1 - TRAIN: Create a Girls Who Code club (http://girlswhocode.com) at Georgia State University, where the club will aim at building weekly technical activities for training women in fundamental concepts of engineering and programming robots. Activities will include basic Arduino and Raspberry Pi programming to work on terrestrial and aerial robot building. The club will entail Dr. Ashok as the faculty advisor and will involve a cohort of female student organizers. To execute this effectively, he will enable mentoring opportunities for the army of female students already actively involved in different women in computing activities such as the ACM-W Girls++ in CS department and the IEEE Women in Engineering clubs. Dr. Ashok has already initiated collaboration with the on-campus makerspace, EXLAB, towards this initiative, and EXLAB has agreed to host all GROW events.

Phase 2 - BUILD: The next stage will initialize with a selection of a cohort of 10-15 students who express interest in continuing through a 2 year robotics program and also have qualified through the exercises in Phase 1. The organizing team along with the cohort will focus on a single robotics project for a year. The project will involve undertaking a real world problem and focussing on how robotics can find a solution, and develop, implement and test the solution.

Phase 3 - COMPETE: The ultimate goal of the proposed robotics initiative is to build an all women GSU robotics team that can compete in robotics competitions. The team will plan the Phase 2 building based on the type of competition to participate in the following academic year. Efforts will completely be placed on updating and testing the robot for the competition and taking part in a national or international competition.