VEX Robotics Educators Conference. Good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us today. This session is going to be a two for one. I'm going to be speaking about empowering girls in robotics and then Blair will be presenting about the different VEX ecosystems that he's been using to create a more inclusive environment. So my session will be about girl power in action and how to replicate this as soon as you go back home. It's from start to finish how to launch your own event with the mission of empowering our girls in STEM. Can you guys hear me well?

So a little bit about me. My name is Patricia Cortez. I'm a Dallas ISD educator. I've been educating for 13 years. I was a 2024-25 Dallas ISD Teacher of the Year. I like to keep this photo because it's a fancy photo that they took of us when I won that award. I am, thank you. I'm a seventh grade Texas history teacher by day and a robotics teacher by night. I do incorporate STEM within the history classroom. That's not what this presentation is going to be about. But if you'd like to hear more about that, I'll be in the educators lounge as well. I also teach elementary robotics using the VEXcode ecosystem and I'm a coach of VEX V5 Robotics and aerial drone teams. My girls actually just finished competing at the world championship two days ago and are taking home some hardware. Here it is. And then my personal mission is to expand access to girls in STEM. Why does this work matter? So I created Girls and Gears to give girls early access to STEM experiences. I had an issue with a couple of girls who were continuously taking a back seat on our robotics team and it was just because of that lack of confidence because they were afraid to speak up and use their voice with boys. So that's where this program came about to build that confidence and those leadership skills within these girls.

So a little bit about my story and why I created Girls and Gears. The problem, we all know the stats, girls lack early STEM exposure and we know that confidence drops sharply in middle school. I was speaking to a couple of educators yesterday about how they're noticing they have to start over with the confidence levels with these girls. Through these programs like Girls and Gears and getting our girls involved and not just participating in these events but leading these events is really going to help with avoiding that confidence drop. Another issue is they don't see females involved. A lot of our coaches are males and they need to see themselves in order to see that they have a part in this as well. So our solution, I can't take full credit for this solution, my girls helped me with this. They attended a girl-powered workshop one year and they decided that they wanted to start their own workshop. So we ended up creating Girls and Gears which is a girl-powered workshop where girls engage on hands-on building, hands-on coding and it is all student led from the planning phases to the implementation phases to the reflection. They do everything. This also is helping us build confidence and leadership within our girls and so now we see an increased female participation in our robotics programs on campus.

So why does this matter? Like I mentioned earlier, you can't be, we can't see. We need girls to see women thriving in STEM so that they can envision themselves in these roles. So how do we address that? It's through early exposure, making sure to build these skills young, not waiting until they are in high school, not waiting until they're in middle school but starting at the elementary level and creating an inclusive environment. I was speaking to a coach yesterday who said he wants to create an all girls team but he's a male. How can he do that? As long as they feel that you believe in them and you truly believe in them, they will go with it and then getting a female involved will come later.

These are a couple of quotes that during our events our girls said, seeing female engineers because we had some keynote speakers come and speak to the girls during this event. Seeing female engineers on my team made me believe I could do it too. Starting robotics in third grade changed my entire career pathway and when I felt included, I finally spoke up.

A couple of our staffs, we know 28 to 30 % of females are in the STEM workforce. Middle school is a critical turning point for interest in what students are going to feel like they're going to succeed with in the future. We do know that we see that confidence drop in STEM during this grade level. 35 % of global STEM students in a higher education are women and there's less early exposure to these concepts. Girls report less early childhood exposure to STEM and technical concepts than boys.

So what is Girl Powered? I keep mentioning that word. This is an initiative that the Robotics Education Competition Foundation established to help address the issue of lack of female representation. They wanted to create a more inclusive environment so it represents our workforce.

They tried to redefine STEM, make it look more like the diverse world we live in. It's an inclusive environment and they're trying to make a global impact. So how do we do this and take it up a notch is with student leadership. The girls are leading these robotics teams, they're leading these events. They are creating outreach programs to address the problem within their entire community. Then after that, the next step is now they are mentoring the next group of girls that are going to be involved. This creates empowerment, a sense of belonging, helps them create their voice, gives them the technical confidence and helps establish career pathways in the future in the STEM field.

A little bit about what Girls and Gears is, it's a student led STEM event through Hands-on Robotics. The captain's planet, the students lead the stations and the presentations, announcements, all of it. It's a very hands-on event. Girls go through rotations where they build something real quick. They code something, they drive a robot, they code a drone. It's some of the first time for a lot of these girls ever touching a robot controller. Those are the moments where we feel we make the greatest impact. Our community impact, we invite girls from all across our district. We're in Dallas ISD, a very urban city. And our event is open to all girls across our entire city. During year one, the girls have over 80 girls across our city join the event. And then in year two, we had over 100 girls participate in our event, not including our volunteers or our girl presenters. So I'm gonna let them do a little bit of the talking right now with our most recent event that happened in October, 2025. So you can kind of see a glimpse into what our event was all about.

We're the LadyBots. This year we led the Girls and Gears Girl Powered event with one clear purpose, to inspire more girls to see themselves in STEM. Our goal was to host 100 girls from across Dallas ISD. And we got over 100 girls from registered. We believe confident girls when girls are given hands-on opportunities to explore engineering, coding, and robotics. We knew we wanted to host 100 girls in October for International Day of the Girl. We began by contacting these three adults. First, our coach, Ms. Cortez, because she can help us with emails and posting on social media since we can't do that. Then we had to talk to our principal, Dr. Cervantes, because we wanted to host our event at our school. Lastly, we contacted Mr. Hernandez, our district STEM coordinator. We knew if we had district support, we could open this event up to the entire district. After contacting them, we were able to set a date, time, and menu. We created a detailed timeline with deadlines for promotion, speaker outreach, supply, ordering, and registration tracking. To pull off this event, we had to divide and conquer. Some of us worked on writing emails with our coach and deciding who we wanted to be our speakers.

Some of us worked on making a flyer and coming up with some good social media posts. Some worked on the agenda for the day, and others worked on the stations. Our total budget was $200. Each team member had a leadership role and clear responsibilities. This was our event. We led every part of it. We partnered with Dallas ISD. We partnered with the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation, Robolink and Kami, and even our school PTO. They helped promote the event, served as guest speakers, and helped with costs. We know it takes a village to make real change. Our speakers shared their career journey, challenges, and advice. They showed participants that girls belong in STEM careers. We reached 24 campuses. 66 participants were new to STEM programs, which means we successfully reached girls who may not have explored robotics or coding before. At Girls and Gears, participants rotated through four hands-on STEM stations. Engineering Challenge, teams built the tallest tower using straws and tape. They tested, redesigned, and improved their structures. Coding Station, participants programmed the girl-powered lightning bolt and practiced sequencing and logical thinking. Binary Bracelets, girls created wearable binary code, learning how computers communicate using zeros and ones.

Robot Driving Challenge, participants controlled robots to complete timed collection challenges. For many, this was their first time driving a robot. We measured our impact through participant surveys. We surveyed students, parents, community members, and volunteers. 99.2 % of the participants rated the event as a five, meaning it was excellent. 96.8 % felt the activities were engaging and age-appropriate, and 97.6 % said they are now interested in joining a STEM club or robotics team after Girls and Gears. And drum roll, please. 100 % said they would come back to this event. That feedback shows our increased awareness, confidence, and enthusiasm for STEM. Through this experience, we developed leadership skills in project management, communication, collaboration, and public speaking. We learned how to coordinate with partners, manage a budget, and lead young students with confidence. Our future goal is to host this event annually and mentor younger students to become future LadyBot leaders. Girls and Gears was more than a workshop. It was a leadership experience. We set clear goals. We built strong partnerships. We promoted with purpose. We measured our impact. We're the LadyBots, and we're leading the next generation of girl-powered innovators.

Thank you for watching. Bye. Thank you. I almost feel like I should have been here instead of you. They are nothing short of amazing. They created this storyboard. They knew what they wanted to record ahead of time, and then they had to do a couple retakes.

But they're amazing. I cannot continue to express. Oh, they told me I needed to use this, sorry.

Hello, okay. That's really loud. Okay, so I thought the best way to explain what the event was was seeing the video that they created about their own event. So Girls and Gears in Action, just like what they said, girls enthusiastically engage into hands-on building, coding robots. One thing they forgot in their video, but I told them we were not re-recording, was their drones coding activity. That was something new this year that they added on to it. Over the course of the past two years, we've served over 180 girls and 16 student leaders. So after these girls graduate our program, they still come back and help lead the next Girls and Gears event. So we currently have three generations of LadyBots leading these events. So some of the impacts that we have seen from hosting these Girls and Gears events is we have two events hosted, over 180 girls served. We have three new All Girls STEM clubs on campus. We have an All Girls VEX IQ team, All Girls VEX V5 team, and an All Girls aerial drones team. All our girls stay, none of them end up dropping out of our program, so we have 100 % retention rate. And these are some of the quotes the girls got from other girls that attended the event. I coded a drone to take off and land on a building.

I never thought I could do that. Leading a station made me feel seen and confident. That's from one of our own ladybots. And I didn't know girls could do robotics until today. That one's the one that got me. How is it that you did not know that you could drive a robot? You could code, you could do it all.

So our goal with this event is to empower students, to inspire students to continue that legacy year after year. So how did these students lead? They planned the agenda, that's where we started. Students organized the event schedule, they organized the activities that were there. They ran the sessions. So that's what I feel distinguishes this event from others, is that it was student ran from the beginning to the end. We did have some volunteers, the girls can be intimidating, some of them are in sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade, and the event is open to third through eighth graders. So we did have adults present, but just to supervise and make sure that everything was safe. Some of the key roles, those student leadership positions were the director. This was our overall coordinator that met with me directly on what we wanna do, what activities are gonna be led, and what do we need. We had our station lead, our station lead met with all the station groups to make sure they had their materials ready, they had their presentations ready, the how they were going to teach it and what they needed. We had a safety lead that walked around just monitoring, they would contact me if they saw any girls needed help.

We had our media manager who managed creating our flyers and bugging me until I kept posting on social media all the time. Logistics, what was our survey going to look like, how did we wanna gather feedback to help better our event, and then our partners lead, which helped me reach out to local groups such as Kami, such as our school PTO, such as the REC Foundation. The impact, we're noticing that students are developing their speaking skills, they can teach, they can get in front of a group of girls and host these activities from start to finish. Their confidence is increasing. We're seeing that they want to take ownership within these events. They're being role models, they're representing girls in STEM, they're being the face for those girls that are coming to the events to know that they can do it as well. This is good for those high school applications, the college applications, it's already getting them ready for their resume and the community. We create lasting connections within our community. We are a choice-based campus where we have to get enrollment ourselves, we have to go to recruit students ourselves. We see that these students are coming into these events and saying, oh, you do this at this school?

Okay, I want to come to this school. And we've seen a lot of more interest in our campus.

Going a little bit into those events, the stations that they hosted, we had a straw tower challenge, which addressed the engineering aspect, just building the tallest tower using straws and masking tape. Binary bracelets that went into coding and logic, they created, they encoded their initials and created a binary bracelet for it. They coded the girl-powered lightning bolt using the VEXcode VR platform. They drove a robot to play a game of Hungry Hungry Hippo where they just, we had a bunch of elements from previous games and they would use those to try to play a game of Hungry Hungry Hippo. Our drone activity, they practice takeoff, landing, precision, because they had to make sure to get to the actual buildings themselves, all through coding. And then if you guys choose to go back and do this, you can make this as creative as you'd like. It can be as easy, as simple, whatever the point is just to go back and try to create these opportunities for our girls. So planning the event. With week one to two, that's where we had to plan our logistics, the date, the location, budget, and our roles. We did not have a budget. There was not funding for this budget. In year one, they got very creative.

They created Amazon wish lists to get the materials they needed for their stations. The other stations were either through VEXcode VR because we already have that subscription, or through robots that we already have on campus. So we used a lot of the things that we had on campus. Within weeks three to four, that's where we recruited our leaders. I saw the strengths in the different girls, and this girl loves to be on TikTok all the time. She can be our social media manager. This girl's great at planning. Let me put her as my coordinator. You see the strengths in the girls you have, and you address them accordingly. Weeks five to six, that's where we started ordering our supplies, preparing our equipment, making sure to list what we already have. After year one, we saved a lot of those materials so that we can just use them again in year two. And then seven through eight, that's when we launched our marketing, starting promoting through our STEM coordinator, starting promoting through social media, sending it to teachers that we know around our community. So some of the supplies that we use, like I mentioned, basic, VEX kits, robots. If you're here, you probably already have those.

Laptops, I'm sure we can find those in our library. Straws and tape, we got that through our Amazon wish list. Drones and cages, we reached out to Robolink, and they graciously let us borrow one of their cages so that we could host our event. Beads and string, Amazon wish list. And then badges and signage, we just created through our printers at school. Promotion can be through different ways, email, flyers, word of mouth, social media. So how do you start this at school? Because that is my goal for you guys to leave today and go off and host your own event. So first you just start with a date and a space. Usually your campus is probably the easiest one because it will be free, hopefully. Step two, recruit your leaders. Find these girls that are all over campus that love to be involved. Get them, run with it, they're going to take it. Step three, choose your stations. First year, start off small. Do easy things, things that are very cost effective, unless you have a budget, of course. Fourth step, secure those materials. Make sure you have all the VEX kits you need if you're using that, if you're using laptops or whatever kind of safety equipment that's needed as well. Step five, invite partners.

Our community is always eager to participate in events like this. It's great promotional material for our community partners. So invite them. Year one, I invited people and not a lot of people showed up, but I posted on social media what they did year one, year two, we had a lot more people reach out and ask, are you doing this again? When are you doing it? Can we come out and watch? Promoting the event, use flyers, use social media announcements, school announcements, promote it to your students on campus. And then lastly, after you host your event, make sure to reflect on your event, especially if you're looking for long term and wanting to recreate this year after year, that reflection aspect is key.

So I know we're all thinking, how do we do this? What are some challenges we're gonna face? We don't have money, we don't have time, we don't have people. I tried to think of all the concerns that I had on year one. So first time, finding time to plan and execute. I know there's limited time for planning. I know there's limited time for coordinating and executing an event like this, but breaking it up into session and having our students leaders is key. Divide and conquer. My girls talk about this all the time. All right, we're gonna divide and conquer, and then we're gonna come back and we're gonna talk about what works and what we're gonna do. Reuse your materials. If you don't have to go buy these materials again, you save yourself a trip to the store or a trip on Amazon. Funding, that was our biggest issue. We had budget constraints for materials. This was post COVID, so there was a lot of budget cuts. Grants, wish lists, reaching out to your community partners, fundraisers before year two event. We had a couple of fundraisers and the girls saved money to actually host their year two event. PTO or PTA, get them involved. This looks good for them as well. And use those low cost materials.

If you don't wanna go buy anything, use VEXcode VR. Use your VEX robots, create different events with those things. Then the last issue, I don't have kids. They don't want to do this. Low student engagement and maybe even year one, there's low attention. I know at low attendance at your event. Don't let that be discouraging. Keep going, keep trying it. Target your invites, promote, promote, promote, promote and make sure they see your role models there. They see your girls, they see your coaches that are involved that aren't just there because maybe they're getting paid or they're just there because they have to be there. Make sure everybody involved is as eager and welcoming as you that you are planning it or your girls that are planning it. So designing your event. How are we going to do this? First, you gotta think about who are you targeting? What age group? Are you going for high school? Are you going for middle school? Are you going for elementary? Or are you going through multiple? Pick your stations. At least commit to three your first time. Make it a quick rotation through. This doesn't have to be a whole day's event. Ours was a half day, both have been a half day. It can be an hour, it can be two.

Pick the easiest entry point for you. Map out your student roles. Who is going to do what? Find their strengths and get them involved. And then decide when are you going to start? When is your event? And backwards plan from there.

The toolkit, you either have a digital paper like this or a folder. It is the same thing. So the folder is a printed version of our, we like to call Bible. If from start to finish, from planning phase to reflection phase, everything we have used to plan our event is in this folder. But it is also in this toolkit here. If you'd rather a digital version so you don't lose it. It is there, feel free to use it. My girls love to talk about the things that they do. So in a moment, I'm going to share my contact information. Feel free to reach out. I can get those girls on a Zoom call to help you plan your event. They would love to hear that somebody else is replicating what they started. There are checklists in this folder. There's samples. I have included all the documents that we use when we are planning our event. I have activities, the material list, how to do your event, what materials you can expect to use, the steps, everything is in this folder. Links and access. RECF, girlpowered.com has a lot of additional events or activities that you can use as well. But this resource kit has samples of so many things. The QR code that's in your printed presentation, that is not the accurate QR code, but the one on this digital toolkit is.

So some actionable steps, some bite-sized pieces that you can leave with today to start your girl-powered culture in your campus or on your school district is schedule a date. Just do it. Pull the trigger, get it done. Name who are gonna be your student captains. I know you're already thinking, oh, I can see so-and-so doing this. Figure out who are those leaders going to be for you. Commit to one thing that you are going to do. And then start small, but think big. Because the outcomes that come from this initiative and the outcomes that come from these events that you host are going to make a lasting impact on at least one student. So thank you guys for your time, your dedication to helping create a girl-powered movement in your areas is going to have a lasting impact. I have my social medias on the left side. My girls' social media, they would be so excited if you guys followed them on Instagram to see that they have a lot more followers now. I have my contact info. The QR code is the digital toolkit. And if you are a brand new coach, this book is absolutely amazing. It is a fictional book, but it gives all the advice to start your own VEX IQ team. And I may have a little bias because the author is my husband, but it truly is an amazing book.

You can find it on Amazon. And my first couple of followers, I have a couple of shirts to give out, and I have a couple of copies of this book to give out as well. So if you can just show me your following. And that is all. Any questions? Yes, sir.

Yes.

As a participant or as a leader? I've seen it both ways. So as a participant, the groups are randomly mixed up. So they're not with their friends. They're not with girls from their own school. So they are pushed to socialize. A lot of the activities are teamwork activities where they have to collaborate if they wanna win the challenge. So as a participant, I can see where collaboration and being away from what you are used to and what you're comfortable with has helped with that social aspect. And then as a leader, my goodness, I can't get my girls to stop talking anymore. They are pushed to go beyond their shyness, their awkwardness, their introvertedness, because they are the ones up there and there's nobody else in that room to present the activity. The volunteer there has no clue what's going on. So they are forced to learn the activity, present the activity, and answer any questions that any of those girls have. Yes, you're welcome. Yes, ma 'am.

So I am on a co-ed campus. It is not an all-girls school. We have a co-ed team and then we have an all-girls team. Initially, they were very reluctant to be on a co-ed team because they felt like their voice wasn't there. But now they head to high school and some of these students that are leaving our middle school and going into the high school teams are the leaders on their co-ed teams in high school. Yes, ma 'am.

So there were 20 minutes this year. It was. We got very creative. But it all depends on what you want to do. Our campus is pretty small too, so we had very little transition time from one rotation to the other. So that really helped dedicate our time to the sessions themselves.

Any other questions?

Awesome, thank you guys. VEX Robotics Educators Conference.