Danielle Boyer always has loved “cooking up” robots. So when she started public high school in her hometown of Troy, Mich., after years of homeschooling and volunteering as a science instructor and mentor to younger kids, she immediately joined a FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robotics team. It didn’t go exactly as Boyer hoped. In fact, it was a very difficult period for her. “I was a girl, and a coder, and the guys made it clear they really didn’t want me there.”