Creative, outgoing and friendly: these are three words Brookline Bots (BBots) mentor, Matthew Allen, used to describe members of the all-girls robotics team.
Founded in 2019, BBots became the first and only all-girls robotics team in Brookline. They meet every Friday and Sunday for three to four hours to build robots and learn together. Each season they are in a new competition with a new theme for their robot. This season their robot is being programmed to throw a ball into a hoop from a box that is a certain distance away.
Last season, BBots won the Connect Award at the Massachusetts State Competition. This award highlighted their ability to connect with others who are passionate about robotics and work together in a STEM setting.
After winning the Connect Award, BBots was able to advance into the Premier League. This past summer, they went to Edmonton, Canada, to compete in the Canadian Rockies Premier event. At this competition, they demonstrated extraordinary communication, allowing them to win the match and the Motivate Award.
Senior Lila Cannon has been a captain of BBots since her junior year and said the team is very inviting to new members.
“We have support videos, tutorials and we also have a buddy system where an older member who’s been on the team for a couple years will pair up with a younger member to support them,” Cannon said.
Matthew Allen is now in his second season as a BBots mentor, which is a coach-like role. He did robotics throughout high school and then decided to continue being involved by being a mentor to BBots. He got invited to meet the team at a robotics event by one of BBots’ other mentors. He went to their shop, met the team and then became their mentor.
Allen’s role switches depending on the point in the season, but his responsibilities include helping, fixing, brainstorming and maintaining a good environment and system.
Allen said that with the changing of the robotics season, the team changes too. The season can go from just brainstorming, to rushing around and testing their robot, to being in the competition.
“At the beginning of the season, you definitely want to encourage creativity, encourage new ideas and [test members] in [their] level of discovery,” Allen said. “Whereas in competition season, you really need to hone in on one idea, and make it perfect and go, go, go, go, go, repair, fix, test, iterate.”
Sophomore Hailey Silk has been doing robotics since elementary school and joined BBots in her freshman year. She has only ever been on all-girls robotics teams, and said this element of her experience has colored her perspective of a field that is often considered male-dominated.
“I had five years on an FLL [First Lego League] team, and it was an all-girls team. Then I moved up, and it was another all-girls team,” Silk said. “My version of STEM and robotics is a little skewed because I’m like, ‘There’s so many girls.’ But that’s just the amazing community that I’m part of.”
Cannon said it can be difficult to be a girl in STEM in Brookline, but BBots has given her a welcoming community.
“I would say that being a girl in STEM, we sometimes are not listened to as clearly by male-identifying students. Generally, I’d say that Brookline High School is a pretty inclusive community but we can’t deny that this discrimination still exists,” Cannon said.
Silk said that BBots opens up an inclusive community that inspires other girls to join robotics or go into STEM.
“I fear that [if] I would have joined robotics without [BBots], I would be like, ‘Everyone is a guy.’ But since we have that all-girls team, there is an option [for a community of girls] if that’s what you’re looking for,” Silk said.
Allen said BBots not only encourages growth in the field of STEM, but also teaches students life skills.
“We’re learning real-world job experiences there, which I think is very valuable to them,” Allen said. “They’re learning how to raise money, how to find sponsors. They have to raise all the money to run this team themselves; they have to go out of their way to raise several thousands [of dollars] every year. Teams aren’t easy to run, and they’ve been able to jump headfirst into that.”
