Maker Outreach: Girls in STEM Event

Evergreen Public School’s College, Career & Technical Education Department hosted a Girls in STEM event. This event, geared toward girls in 5th - 8th grade, provides an opportunity for girls and their families to get hands-on with interactive STEM workshops and displays. I received an invitation via Justin to attend this program on behalf of Outreach Services.

We originally offered to host a 3D printing workshop, but the coordinators asked us to provide a different workshop topic, as Evergreen Public Schools was already offering a 3D printing workshop. Evergreen Public Schools also offered workshops in: Intro to Architecture, Chemistry, Computer Programming, Aerial Exploration, Sphero Programming, Anatomical Hand Prosthetic Design, Game Design, and STEAM Academy. Other workshops offered by community partners included: Drone Technology (Mackay Sposito), Coding Software (TEALS), Manufacturing with Paper Cranes (SEHAmerica), Invent, Design, and Innovate (Curiate), Creative Pharmacy (Kaiser), Architecture (LSW Architects).

Community Partners who provided interactive tables included: West Vancouver Dental, WA Dept Fish & Wildlife, HOSA, WSDOT, Underwriters Laboratories, WaferTech, Frontier MS Spheros, WSUV CMDC Program, Donate Life NW, EPS Robotics Clubs, EPS Video Game Design, Clark College STEM Nerd Girls and Geek program.

Fort Vancouver Libraries hosted a table with clothespin switch circuits as well as two workshops on soldering.We worked with over 150 girls and their parents to introduce them to basic circuitry and electronics. The girls, many of whom had never heard of soldering before, were initially intimidated by the soldering irons. Once they got the hang of the skill, they were unstoppable and assisted one another in troubleshooting and completing badges. We successfully soldered 32 robot badges, with only one faulty badge!  In addition to myself, the Youth Services Librarian, a Senior Assistant from my branch and a Senior Assistant from Cascade Park assisted with this outreach event. The Library’s workshop and booth appeared to be one a few hands-on spaces with a take-away project at the event, making us very popular!

It's important to note that I had a difficult time finding the Make Magazine Learn2Solder Robot badges. This batch came from eBay. They didn't come with batteries, but that wasn't too big a deal. The +/- were not labeled for the LEDs and the LEDs provided were solid red, not color-changing blinking lights, but they still went over pretty well. I am now on the hunt for a comparable replacement. There are a lot of Learn2Solder badges, but the ones I have found are a little more than I want to get into at a beginner level and with big groups.

(Photo by Brighid Lane)

I ran into a couple of the Girls in our Fall 2018 Girls Who Code Club. They told me they attended the coding sessions and were bored because their coding skills are already well above what was covered in the class. I am one proud librarian!