The 2019-2020 EngineerGirl Ambassadors have been busy implementing their projects. Here's what they told us when we recently checked in with them.

A participant in Anastasia Cook's Jr. EngineerGirl Club showing off the "smart house" she designed to protect the javelinas in the story The Three Little Javelinas. 

Anastasia Cook has been meeting with her Jr. EngineerGirl Club for 2 hours once a week since the beginning of the year. “Girls really liked Novel Engineering and asked me to host more sessions. The Three Little Javelinas by Susan Lowell was a big hit. Girls came up with different solutions on how to prevent a coyote to snack on javelinas such as spikes on the house' roof, reflective walls, laser system, and drop-down bridge. They laughed, designed and created without having a second thought that engineering was not for them!”

Saraswati Sridhar in making progress with research and writing video transcripts in spite of having lost time and internet access due to an earthquake.

Sara Huelskamp has contacted multiple engineers that are willing to be on her site and are very excited about the project. She also had one of her elementary school teachers contact her about doing a presentation to her class. “I am really excited about [that].”

Sophie Poole has finished interviews that will be featured in the videos she is creating for her project. “I’m proud that I got to interview so many amazing women and that I have personally connected with each one of them. They all had very meaningful and inspiring things that I will show to the kids.”  You can see one of her completed videos on her profile.

Adun Oladeji has already hosted her third workshop! This one “we did an hour of a speaker and an hour of Arduino activities. I think I did a better job of explaining this than the activity last time, and most of the kids progressed pretty quickly.”

Two girls working on a Arduino actvity in a recent workshop hosted by Adun Oladeji

Bridget Li has been helping her program participants get ready for the science fair deadline. “Even though they're a bit rushed right now, they are still willing to put in effort and do the best they can. It's their first year participating, so they have had to learn a lot on their own, which I am proud of.”

Lillian Williams is proud of “being able to work with my sponsor and come up with ideas for my event collaboratively and effectively.” She’s also excited to be working with the GEMS program: “I did not expect to be able to do this when I first planned my project, but am grateful to have the opportunity [of working with them].”

An example of a binary bracelet created by Lucille Steffes

Lucille Steffes hosted the first meeting of her club. She opened the meeting with a Gimkit she created to introduce different kinds of engineering to the girls (and to learn their names). They discussed “all of the different things that an engineer could do” before starting to learn about binary code and its applications. For the rest of the meeting everyone worked on making binary bracelets. “I had enough colors of beads so that each participant could make their bracelet different and unique to them, which they all seemed to enjoy.”

Sarah Eckert has had successful discussions with the John Deere World Headquarters Global Program Director for STEM and Youth Education about securing Boomtown Build and WeDo2.0 sets for her Maker’s Space™ in June.

Parvati Menon held a library event on January 2nd with Makey Makey. She started them off with an easy task so that they could get use to the makey makey and then added complexity with different stations. “The students loved the activities a lot and they were talking about how much fun they were having.”  You can see a video of the event on YouTube.

Course flyer Kelly Cha created to recruit students to her engineering course.

Kelly Cha created a flyer for the engineering course she is hosting in May.  She’s also decided on the project for each workshop, doing a different topic each day.  For next steps she “will meet with the mayor, decide on a location, and start recruiting this month. The website will be published after getting the necessary information. [She has] more time to focus on recruiting and contacting people now that college applications are all over.”

Ashley Lin is pleased with how her project is taking shape. “We got five speakers to sign up so far!” She’s also identified the platform they are going to use to host the field trips and has figured out how they’s handle the project passports. “Instead of having students track their attendance in real-time, we’re hosting a passport designing competition for student participants on the VFT. We’ll match them up in teams with students from other countries to use their newly gained design and engineering skills!”

Maggie Haber recently hosted a session of her program. “This session we made oobleck, a simple non-newtonian fluid and discussed states of matter and viscosity. The girls were overjoyed to learn that there aren't only three states of matter and that they had new information to share with their classmates at school. They also said that they enjoyed the activity so much that they want to ask the teachers if they can do it in science class next time they learn about states of matter!”

Rachel Chae finished two art pieces show her camp participants how to apply art to STEM!  “My big goal is for us to hold a big summer camp where middle schools from the Washington DC Metro Area/ DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia) can come together with the help of the DC-based Techbridge Girls. However, we must start step by step!”

Lauren Eppinger has finished writing lesson plans for her program. “The group I'm teaching has some of the girls I taught before in it, and they offered to help with teaching (which is so cute)”.  She was also able to work out some logistics issues: “being at a boarding school, I [didn’t] have consistent access to a car to get to [the program site].” But she’s since gotten permission to have her car on campus.

Madelyn Heaston has confirmed the dates and locations for her STEAM workshops - 4 in the Seattle area and one in Mexico!  She also sent out 15 proposals to local businesses to help supply the programs and got a positive response from several: “Big WIN!!  Target donated a $250 gift card!!”

Passport cover Madelyn Heaston created for her workshops