IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2013 - 122

away by some of the designs students
had come up with and how many
teams had girls on them. It left a lasting
impression on me to see so many
fathers there with their daughters, trying to help fix a piece of a robot or just
being supportive. There were 9- or
10-year-old girls tightening parts and
changing robots' programming. The
atmosphere was full of anticipation and
excitement. It was great to see so many
boys and girls working together and
having fun with robots.
Last year, I had the privilege to
volunteer at a local robotics challenge
held by IEEE Women in Engineering.
The South Jersey Robot Challenge
(Figure 2) is put on every year to
encourage local high-school students
to become engineers. The challenge
typically involves building a single
robot from a kit to specification and
navigating it through a small obstacle
course. Each team is supplied with a
robot kit and paired with an IEEE
mentor. In this year's competition,
over 12 teams participated in the
challenge. To my surprise, almost
every team had one girl, and there
were several all-girl teams. The girls
almost out-numbered the boys at the
event. My role in this challenge was
to be a judge, so I had time to speak
with many of the girls. It was exciting
to hear that most of them were considering careers in engineering
because they found the challenge to
be both fun and rewarding. I am hoping to become a team mentor for the
next challenge so that I may offer

more advice and inspire other young
men and especially women.
Even though I have not had much
experience with robotics challenges, I
believe they are the perfect forum for
getting students excited about engineering. Constructing a robot typically
requires some basic mechanical and
electrical engineering skills, which will
provide these kids with a great foundation for any engineering major. It is also
a lot of fun for all of the students I have
met. I would encourage more people to
start local robotics challenges and see
whether they can inspire a few more
future engineers.

in an alienating environment geared
for young men.
The year was 1980, and there was
only one ladies' room in our entire
four-floor engineering building-it
was obvious that girls were an afterthought in the program. Yet, I did not
"derail"-I had the support of wonderful parents (either of whom could
have been an engineer) and a healthy
fear of failure. I had good teachers
and, every now and then, an adult
would ask a question that would
change my life:
"What about engineering?"...
"What does an engineer do?"... "They

Kathleen Rutherford
Associate Director of Regulatory Affairs,
Zimmer Trabecular Metal Technology
I am lucky to be an engineer. There
were no engineers in my family, and
no one, before me, had gone to college
in my immediate family. The road was
fraught with a miasma of advanced
math, the dysphoria of physics and the
complexity of digital electronics, all set

Image courtesy of Paul P. Eggermann PE.

Figure 3. Winning team at the 2010 New York Regional FIRST Robotics Competition.

Figure 4. Team Captain Vanessa Ronan and Future Team Captain
Karra Puccia (left), and Andrea Sarmiento (right) race to repair a
motor assembly between races.
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IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

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March 2013

Figure 5. Team 3204 with Dean Kaman, the founder of the FIRST
Robotics Competition.
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