High School Girls Create Their Own Wearables at MIT Workshop
Mechanical engineer Kristen Railey gathered 50 high
school
girls at the MIT Lincoln
Laboratory in Lexington, MA, one Saturday in December.
When the researcher who builds and programs military robots for the lab
asked
the students to close their eyes and imagine what an engineer looks
like, only
six said they imagined somebody like Railey, a young woman just a few years older
than
themselves.
That's exactly why Railey, an MIT engineering
graduate, had organized
the first one-day "Make Your Own Wearables" workshop for teenage girls
that the
Massachusetts Institute for Technology had ever held.
"My goals were to spark girls' interest in
engineering through
the trendy topic of wearables and to equip them with hands-on
engineering
skills before college," said Rainey, who knew about a Verizon study that
found
that girls who became interested in science, technology, engineering and
mathematics (STEM) early were more likely to pursue it in college.
Railey targeted girls in grades 9-12 for
the first workshop because "girls in this group are applying to college,
picking their freshman classes, declaring majors and thinking about
possible
careers."
The day started with an introduction by Katy
Olesnavage, a
Ph.D. candidate at MIT who described her work on a next-generation
prosthetic
foot for amputees in the developing world, and a rundown on the science
behind
Wristify, a bracelet that sends waves of heating and cooling to the
wearer's
wrist.
Next, the girls moved on to a 3D printer where they
worked in
pairs to create 3D models of the bracelets they had just learned about.
After
lunch, the teams programmed robots to build peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches
before capping the day off by building a shoe-wearable electronic
circuit with
LED lights and a pressure sensor. Together, teams created their own
shoes that
flashed red lights.
"The girls were really amazed that their codes
worked," Railey
said. "Their faces lit up as they walked and saw their own shoes
flashing red."
Railey is planning a second workshop this year, this
time on
the main MIT campus in order to attract girls from urban
neighborhoods in
Boston.
In the meantime, she will stay in touch with last
year's
participants via social media and the blog on her Web site, Girls Who Build.
About the Author
Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.