On Saturday the 13th of July, I ran two robotics workshops at the STEMettes Future Summit. The event was sponsored by and took place at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch in London.
STEMettes Future Summit brings together young women of all ages to celebrate their place as future STEM leaders and role models. At the event, there was a range of workshops, panels and talks all centered around STEM careers. This was actually the inaugural Future Summit.
In preparation for this event, I first had to come up with an interesting and fun workshop which could be delivered within a time limit of 40 mins. I decided on running a Bit:Bot workshop, as I had tinkered around with it at home and really enjoyed using it.
Next, I prepared a set of instruction sheets to assist the building and coding. They were really clear & detailed, as I wanted to do everything possible to help the girls to complete the tasks in time.
In addition, I pre-assembled some of the components before the workshop, so that the girls would have more time to complete the coding part of the workshop.
As mentioned before, I ran two workshops. One started at 11:20 a.m and the second one started at 2:40 p.m. In the first session, the girls were working really well in their pairs and created a positive buzz in the room. Working in pairs, made it a lot easier for them to get the robot completed on time. I strongly feel that paired programming was important for both of my sessions, helping them to run smoothly, considering the amount of time we had.
The afternoon workshop started with slightly fewer people until … what looked like 20 extra people, swarmed in through the doors. Luckily, it was only an extra 10 people, who had arrived a bit late from their previous session. There were more people at the second workshop, which made it seem more intimidating, but in the end, both were just as successful. During the second session, I met a girl called Amera, who is also really interested in STEM & blogs about her experiences. This is her website: https://whatsnotatschool.com
The workshop attendees attached a pen holder & pen to their bit bot and enjoyed watching the robots autonomously create patterns on a large piece of paper.
Overall, I really enjoyed my time at STEMettes Future Summit and would like to say a big thank you to Anne-Marie Imafidon for giving me the opportunity to run a workshop at the event and to all the volunteers who supported me during the sessions. I met so many inspiring people who shared an interest in coding and STEM like me. This made my day!
Hi, my name is Avye and I love making, coding, designing, exploring new technology and swimming! This site is about the things I get to experience, discover and enjoy. Welcome to my world!