Girls in STEM: MakerGirls

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We are here today to chat with one of the MakerGirls.

And the MakerGirls is an organization that is focused on getting young girls,

aged seven to ten, to think about science, technology, engineering, and math.

And look at careers in one of those fields.

And we have here Stephanie with us to chat about and

tell us about what the MakerGirls are doing.

So thank you for taking the time.

>> Thank you.

>> Could you introduce yourself?

>> I'm Stephanie Hein.

I'm the engagement director for MakerGirl.

I'm in charge of creating the content for the sessions and running the sessions.

And making sure the girls leave with an understanding of science,

technology, engineering, and math and how that relates to 3D printing.

>> Give us an overview of what MakerGirls is.

>> MakerGirl is a program that introduces girls from the ages of seven to ten

to science, technology, engineering and

math fields through 3D printing workshops at the maker lab.

>> These girls are really small, age seven to ten, and

they're coming into the labs, it's fun to have them.

Give us a sense of how 3D printing even is accessible to kids so young.

What are they really learning there?

>> In our sessions, we go through design process and teach them how

they can take their ideas and create an actual object out of that.

So we do that through connecting different topics that they are able to relate to and

know a little bit about to 3D printing.

And have them create a model that kind of goes along with that theme.

One of the examples we do a creating with chemistry session.

We teach the girls a little bit about phase changes.

Solids, liquids and gasses and

tell them how the printer takes a solid plastic, melts it down to a liquid and

is able to create their object which is then a solid again.

We have had a lot of them create objects like molecules.

They'll build water, a really common one because they know that one, H2O.

So they'll create the molecule on Tinker CAD and then print it out.

A lot of them also take the elements on the periodic table, and then

will create that with the abbreviation and the weight and the number.

And sometimes we'll create a keychain out of that too.

>> How difficult is it for them to

understand this process of modeling in 3D and does this

experience of doing that modeling help them with,

perhaps with math or geometry or something?

>> A lot of them come in for the first time,

not having any experience with Tinker CAD is pretty difficult for them at first.

They're just not really sure how to change the size and

the shape and the height of different objects and combine them together.

So a lot of the times when we're checking their designs it'll look like

the object is all together and touching but

when you change the view on Tinker CAD, their objects will be very far apart.

And so we teach them how they can change the view, so they can look at their design

from above and from all different sides to make sure that everything is together,

and touching, and centered the way that they like it.

So that teaches them about the coordinate system, and helps them visualize in 3D.

>> You've run- >> Over 55.

>> 55 sessions in the lab over the last year.

What was your favorite thing that somebody made?

>> Just recently we did a virtual reality session and

one of our girls, she designed a little model of 3D glasses.

It was very intricate and advanced, there were so many shapes and

she has come to a couple of sessions, so she knows what she's is doing.

But it was very impressive to see kind of how her designs had involved over

the sessions that she had been to and they got a lot more complex.

>> All right, all right.

So, pleasure to see them come up with crazy ideas.

>> Yeah.

>> And I know you are also doing something new over this summer.

>> Mm-hm. >> So tell us about that.

>> Sure, so we're planning a road trip across the country in order to

bring our sessions and 3D printing to parts of the country that may not have had

as much exposure to 3D printing.

>> Okay. >> Our goal is to impact over 1,500

girls this summer over an eight to nine week trip.

>> So, a summer trip across the country in a, how are you going,

in a bus or, how are you planning?

>> In a large SUV with a trailer that holds our printers and computers.

>> Nice, sounds like a fun summer.

>> Yeah. [LAUGH]

>> Well, thank you for

taking the time to chat with us.

It's a pleasure.

>> Thank you.

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