This afternoon I attended the closing session of a program for high school students interested in engineering. Here’s me, watching a demonstration of an “artbot” project.
Presiding over ArtBots
Sweet Briar Engineering Program Professors Hank Yochum and Scott Pierce ran Exploring Engineering Design, with the assistance of students Maxine Emerich, Mary Anne Haslow Hall, and Sarah James. Students created projects in two categories. “Artbots” were robots designed to create art. (Robots tend to be abstract expressionists, I now realize.) “Wearable computing” garments were designed to respond to conditions in the environment. (Several of us were particularly impressed by a headband with a tilt sensor. If you nod off while wearing it, it vibrates and buzzes you awake. Useful in so many contexts!)
The students weren’t always in labs — for example, they got a tour of the new Fitness and Athletic Center, where construction is just finishing up, for a presentation on how the engineers and contractors had solved real life problems in designing and building it.
Sweet Briar, to my mind, is all about preparing women to achieve and accomplish. As I watched the students today demonstrate their projects, I reflected that engineering is precisely about making things happen in the world. Educating women in engineering empowers women to make the things they dream real. Sweet Briar engineers solve problems and improve life for others: check out this story for an inspiring example. This is engineering with a mission!
Max Emerich helping a program student
Tags: engineering, science, summer programs