Last Oct. 22, the first robot built by the Brearley School’s robotics team came to life with a lift of its long metal arm.  The Brearley Bots were excited, but it was also the last day to send robots to the FIRST Robotics Competition headquarters in New Hampshire.  A Fed-Ex truck they called was idling in front of the Upper East Side school.  The driver took a nap as the girls painstakingly blanketed the robot with bubble wrap and string before placing it in a large wooden crate.  They stood on the sidewalk as it was lifted into the truck with a crane, and waved goodbye. 

Science teacher and Brearley Bot advisor Annette Marcus talks about the team's history (VIDEO: Catherine Shu and Dario Thuburn)

The only all-girl team to compete in the New York regional “were really involved,” said their adviser, science teacher Annette Marcus. “The robot was their baby.” 

Amazingly enough, the Brearley Bots started out with only a rudimentary knowledge of robotics.  The Brearley School’s fifth-graders build mini-robots out of Legos in science class and some of the girls go on to compete in the Lego League, the junior version of the robotics competition.  A former Lego leaguer, ninth-grader Kristin Kogetsu, 14, enjoyed the experience so much that she and 11th-grader Francesca Slade formed the Brearley Bots. 

“There was a huge amount to learn,” Marcus remembered.“None of us knew anything about robotics.  We were all starting from zero.”  The teams at Morris and Stuyesvant High Schools invited the girls to their team meetings and engineering students from Columbia University served as the Bots’ mentors.  But the girls spent hours on their own, laboring in an empty classroom after school and on weekends. 

The most challenging part of putting together the robot “was sorting through the myriad ideas and suggestions to come up with an efficient robot,” Francesca said. “The most fun was the actual building.”  The team learned all about drive trains, chassis, drimmels, gears, sprockets and, of course, how to wield a massive power drill. 

The girls were incensed when Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard University, suggested in January that men might be innately better at math and science than women.  “There were some pretty lively sessions,” Marcus said. 

Team co-captain Francesca Slade loads a tetra on to the Brearley Bot (PHOTO: Catherine Shu)

But the team was too busy to dwell on Summers’s remarks.  “It was really annoying when our mentors, who were mainly men, worked at all on the robot, though, because we felt like we were being usurped, and we were defeating the purpose of having an all-girls team,” Francesca said. “But usually it was a girl with a drill and the mentors looking on, which was a great role reversal.” 

While the girls were figuring out how to saw through metal and fit gears together, Marcus was on the phone with potential sponsors. Fundraising was – and remains – a challenge for the team.  Even though Brearley is one of New York City’s most elite private schools, it operates on a tight budget, Marcus said.  The girls’ parents provided their transportation and food, but the team relied on donations for the rest of their expenses, including the $6,000 registration fee. 

“You can’t do any frivolous thing and expect the school to fund it,” said Marcus, adding that she hoped the team’s success will convince Brearley parents, who are already paying a high tuition, that the Bots are just as worthy of support as the school’s drama club or sports teams. 

While the girls placed 28 out of 33 teams in the initial matches, they made it to the finals as part of an alliance.  “They had quite a good robot.  It had a good arm, and it catches well,” said Ollie Mower, 16, the captain of the Systemetrics, which hailed all the way from Cambridge, England, “and they did well playing together as a team.”  The Brearley Bots also won the Rookie Inspiration Award for being the team that inspired the most interest in their community and school.

Marcus hopes the Bots will become a Brearley tradition.  “We were much more successful than we ever thought we would be.  We thought we wouldn’t have a robot that would move or even be in good enough shape to send.  And then the girls were as spunky and energetic as they were, and they enjoyed it.  I hope that’s persuasive.”