February 21, 2015 Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Girl Scout Badge Event
For more than 12 years, Charlotte-Metrolina Section, Society of Women Engineers has conducted the “Engineers Are Epic!” event for Girl Scouts with the Hornets’ Nest Girl Scout Council in Charlotte, North Carolina. Volunteers conduct five hands on sessions covering chemical, mechanical, structural, civil, and electrical engineering. It is great fun for the girls to get involved learning, designing, experimenting, building and testing projects. It was even more fun to share our enthusiasm for engineering and inspire the girls to pursue a career that can change the world.
- For Chemical engineering, “Slime” was a wonderful hands on fun time with each girl taking home what she had created.
- For mechanical engineering, individual “Puff Mobiles” were created with lots of excitement competing to see which wind powered design could travel the farthest. I am always amazed to see the same materials used for designs that I had not thought of before.
- For Structural engineering, teams worked on “Suspension Bridges” and then stress tested them to determine best design, and identify improvements.
- For Civil engineering, “Chocolate Asphalt” taught about composition of roads, and then after building their own roads, the girls were allowed to eat them. This was the most aromatic and best tasting session!
- For Electrical engineering, each girl built her own “Burglar Alarm”, learning about stripping wires, connectors, conductors and circuits. This was one of the most difficult and most rewarding sessions.
The success of this event hinges on our high volunteer to Girl Scout ratio. Women and men, engineers and non-engineer volunteer participation is the reason for the success of this longstanding program.