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Every October, Wisconsin Tech Month unifies and celebrates tech and innovation across the state — both the present and the future. That includes a big effort to get more young people involved in STEM through events like a recent competition that encouraged marginalized gender identities to take the lead.
SHOUT Robotics was founded just this year but has quickly gained traction with its focus on amplifying underrepresented voices in STEM fields. As part of that effort, 40 teams from Wisconsin and Illinois led by female and non-binary individuals battled at Divine Savior Holy Angels High School in a competitive but supportive environment.
“Representation is really important, so being able to have an all-female drive team is really powerful for these kinds of competitions,” said Violet, a junior on the Hilltopper Robotics team that includes 80 students from DSHA and Marquette University High School.
“We're an all-girls school, so we kind of are surrounded by that sisterhood. Everyone's super supportive, and I think that really says a lot about our team,” she added. “They're encouraged to go above and beyond, and to do the hard things, to get into our build rooms, to sometimes elbow the guys out of the way if you know you should be the one holding that drill.”
The event was based on a competition model established by FIRST Robotics, an international high school program whose female participation in Wisconsin sat at 27% as of 2025. SHOUT program director Allison Conrad pointed to that number as a motivating factor in creating the local competition.
“What the SHOUT Robotics program is focused on is trying to provide safe and fun environments for the girls interested in pursuing STEM on these teams,” she said, “to take a leading role and drive their robots in competition for a full day.”
Violet and her teammate Lesly did exactly that for the event at DHSA, serving as the driver and operator of their team’s robot. Not only have they become one of the top teams in Wisconsin over the past few years; they’re among the top 2% of teams worldwide.
While success on the battleground is important, the two girls were quick to note how they discovered their passions through the program, as well as what they hope to pursue in the future. “I kind of have that engineering brain, that iterative brain, where I want to find a problem, solve it and do it to the best of my ability,” Violet said.
For Lesly, robotics opened a path she hadn’t seen before: an interest in business and human resources. “A lot of students always assume that just because you're in robotics, you're going to become an engineer or something technical, but that's not always the case,” she said. “While there's also business-outreach stuff, I want to be into human resources because just the aspect of being in FIRST has helped me know how to lead a team and understand the importance of understanding other people.”
She added that the eye-opening experience hasn’t been limited to external observations. It’s just as much about self-improvement. “I think I definitely got more (into) that head space that I should take more initiative and also self-advocacy,” Lesly said. “Sometimes … you want to just kinda shut down. As girls, you’re maybe a little scared to say something. [SHOUT] actually gave me the opposite, and I want to advocate for myself and others instead.”
Those are the results Conrad and SHOUT’s other program directors were aiming for when they launched this effort to inspire the next generation of women in the technology field.
“A big focus of our program is giving kids more visibility to women in all these leading roles in technology,” she said, “so they know that there is a safe space for them if that’s something they’re passionate about continuing to pursue.”
