By Katy Savage
Margo Thompson remembers the day she decided she wanted to build robots and pursue STEM for the rest of her life.
She was about 10 years old and building lego robots at a summer camp, where she was partnered with a boy.
“I was sitting there and he was doing it all,” said Thompson, now 16. “I kept trying to get in there and help build it. I kept asking him and he pushed me aside. I asked him again with a little more of a stern tone and he said, ‘it’s because you’re a girl.’”
She decided then to fight for her right to a STEM education.
“It just kind of wrecked me inside,” she said. “I still use it as fuel. It’s amazing in a bad way how little kids have that impression.”
Thompson has been part of the Rutland Area Robotics – IBOTS team for the past three years.
This year, the team traveled to the FIRST World Championship in Houston…