Gabby Frierson, aka “RoboGabby”, is an 11 year old, 6th grade middle school student, in Charleston, South Carolina. Gabby is passionate about designing, building, and programming robots. She encourages young girls to explore STEM fields and believes that every young girl should get involved in STEM activities to see if it sparks an interest.

In addition to Gabby’s passion for robotics, she also loves drawing, reading, writing stories, bike riding, and playing with her younger brother and dog. Half of Gabby’s “desire to inspire” developed after seeing lack of girls involved with STEM at her school. The other half comes from Gabby’s father, Drew Frierson, who is a Software Engineer for Boeing.

In Gabby’s own words:

“From 8 to 10 years old, I learned how to program in Python, a little bit of Java, and learned block programming with Scratch. When I was 10 years old, I purchased my first robotic arm using my own Christmas money. By this time my interest in robotics grew, but it was not until this past summer (summer 2016) when I really started to love STEM, after attending several computer/technology camps and 3 robotics camps. I’ve discovered that being different was something cool, rather than something to be embarrassed about.”

Importance of Role Models

Having a software engineer dad gave Gabby some good genes, but the key is that Drew exposed her to programming and STEM.  According to Drew: “Pushing Gabby to engage in STEM related activities really helped foster her love for STEM”. This shows how important it is to have a parent or other adult introduce and encourage girls and young women.

With Drew’s encouragement and gentle nudging, Gabby kept learning. She developed a love of programming and robotics:

“My dad introduced me to programming when i was 8 years old. I started out learning the Python programming language, and I did not quite understand why he was making me learn it. Eventually, I started doing fun things with code and began to like it.”

Blazing Her Own Trail: RoboGabby on YouTube

Gabby quickly realized that she was unique. Most girls don’t have role models introducing them to coding, robotics and other STEM subjects:

“During this past Summer (2016), I signed up for an all girls robotics camp that was being offered by my school. However, they cancelled the camp because not enough girls signed up. My dad found other robotics camps for me to attend, but, there were only about 4 girls who participated, in total of all the camps I attended, including myself.

Instead of sulking, or taking up a more “popular” activity, Gabby responded positively:

“I constantly asked my parents why was there not more girls involved in STEM, and my dad suggested that I try to inspire other girls to get involved. I wanted to inspire more then just girls in my hometown, so my dad suggested that I make videos and post them on YouTube. 

(Below is a screen shot from one of  RoboGabby’s YouTube tutorials. Click the picture to be taken directly to the video. Or, check out at Gabby’s full site at RoboGabby on You Tube )