I could very well relate to such experience.
It is your first season. All those things like the gear ratios, friction, and c++ functions are foreign to you and everything is very confusing. You work for several months learning how to build and program. Your robot is sketchy but you are trying to do the right thing and score game objects.
At the same time, second year all boys team spends most of their time on the phones playing generals and reading jokes online. A week before the competition they build 8 motor push bot and practice drifting in the hallway, while you struggle to do a simple autonomous.
At the competition you play against them in quarterfinals. They relentlessly pin and push you around and you could not score anything. Your alliance loses.
Then, the next week in school, every time they know you can hear them, they talk among themselves how girls suck at driving. Your friend, who was the driver, breaks down in tears and tells you she is not going to do vex anymore.
It takes parents a lot of comforting to talk her into finishing the first season before dropping out of vex.
I believe more girls will be doing vex if aggressive driving was not very rewarding.