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Tech-Girl Monthly:  April/May 2021

Tech-Girls Online Workshop Series
We have missed you during this pandemic downtime, but we've also been busy re-imagining some of our programming and are super excited to be launching the Tech-Girls Online Workshop series for girls in 5th through 8th grade! Research shows that after-school programs offering both fun, hands-on computer science (CS) activities and access to female role models in computing careers provide opportunities for adolescent girls to understand what they can do with CS and to aspire to CS-related careers. These are exactly the goals of this new workshop series that we are piloting this month. As we launch this new initiative, we are also excited to be part of a study through the University of Virginia School of Education that will help us look at the impact of this program. Registration is free, but space is limited!

May 16 at 4:30pm and May 20 at 5:30pm - Empathy and Game Design with Eileen Krepkovich, research scientist and biomedical engineer at Barron Associates. This workshop focuses on using empathy as part of game design. Learn about the design thinking process and how it can be used for designing many things - from video games to medical devices. Your feedback will be used to improve a game currently in design!

May 29 at 10am - Design, Code and Stitch with Sarah FitzHenry & Kim Wilkens, co-hosts of Once Upon a Tech podcasts. Did you know you can code patterns and send them to an embroidery machine to bring them to life? Learn how to create your own patterns and help Kim test out her new embroidery machine!

May 30 at 4:30pm - Computational modeling for decision-making under climate
change uncertainty with Dr. Julie Quinn, assistant professor in Engineering Systems and Environment at UVA. Almost every decision you make is under uncertainty. Will I need a rain jacket in the afternoon? Will they say yes if I ask them to the movies? Is 1 hour enough time to finish this assignment? Oftentimes, we can use computational modeling to simulate different scenarios of what might happen in the future to inform what decisions are best on average, or what decisions minimize the worst case outcome.

We are also delighted to share some really cool opportunities being offered by friends of Tech-Girls:
  • EcoHacks hosted by SWENext Albemarle on May 15 is a student-run online hackathon open to students 14-18 years old.
  • Summer Spark hosted by St. Anne's-Belfield School (see details below).

Spotlight: Aditi Prakash

Aditi Prakash is a senior at Albemarle High School. Her passion is inspiring kids to pursue education and STEM. Recently, she created a free STEM kit program, called Key to Learning, with her co-founder Rimi Kaur. So far they have partnered with the Boys and Girls Club, the Northside Library, and a few local elementary schools who are using their kits in their 3rd/4th grade curriculum. They have created 400 kits so far, and each kit contains the materials for five science experiments that are paired with five science lessons.
Aditi has also been very involved with Tech-Girls, mostly recently as an intern during the 2020 Bio-Med Tech-Girls summer program. In April she received the Emily Couric Leadership Award!

What was your pathway to working in/studying technology?
My pathway into working with tech was through my robotics team - I always loved math and science, but my first true tech/coding experiences were with my team.

What advice would you give to your younger self?
The advice I would give my younger self would be to never give up on a project or a new skill before you have given a good number of attempts. So many students are conditioned to believe that their inherent ability is what matters in whether they will be successful in a certain field or not, but this could not be farther from the truth. Persistence and grit is what yields success. This is especially important for discouraged and underrepresented groups in STEM. If we teach students that their effort and persistence is what matters and not ‘talent’, the world will be a better place.

Read more.

Notes from the Field: Summer Spark


Guest post by Zach Minster, Upper School CS Coordinator, St. Anne's-Belfield School

Summer Spark, powered by St. Anne’s-Belfield, will return this year as a free-of-charge & hybrid (in-person & virtual) program open to any student from around the world ages 11-18. The road to this point has been long, but we are beyond excited to bring the creative, enterprising potential of technology to more campers this summer!

We’ve been running tech camps at St. Anne’s for years, and we planned last summer to be like any other. When it became increasingly clear that we wouldn’t be able to have camp in person, we were faced with the prospect of shutting camp down for the summer. Instead, a team of Upper School students came together and designed a free virtual summer camp experience like no other. We featured daily livestreams with special guests and activities, hosted lessons taught by students that were completely “gamified” where campers could earn experience points for their work, and featured a gallery where campers could celebrate their achievements and those of others in their “cabins.” We ended up having campers join us from all around the world, actively interacting and sharing their new discoveries with one another. Campers made amazing connections with others, and the entire program was powered by students just like them -- even the software that ran our camp was developed by volunteers.

This year, we intend to take the success of the virtual model and fuse it into a hybrid camp experience. We were so enamored with how making our program free-of-charge and accessible online made it possible for so many campers from around the world to attend, so we are excited to keep these features around this year. While campers can join us virtually, we are able to host 48 campers each week on the St. Anne’s campus, which will also be free of charge. We’ll be obeying all the safety rules and best practices we learned throughout this in-person school year to make this a great learning experience for everyone who attends. We have a lot of ideas for this summer that will help bring our at-home and in-person campers together through shared activities, experiences, and showcases within mixed “cabins.”

Our camp weeks this year are centered around 3 themes: Web & App Development, Art of Code, and Art of Games. These all represent different “lenses” into the vast world of computer science. Campers can attend just one week or all of them, but they should expect an experience that encourages them to be creative, to collaborate with others, and to prepare them to independently create and grow with technology. We certainly don’t expect folks to come in with any experience, but those who do can expect guidance from our experienced student leaders to point them to areas that can help them grow even further.

Last year’s campers raved about how the Summer Spark experience changed their entire perspective on computer science and what they were able to achieve with technology while they were at home. Many of those campers are now joining us as curriculum designers and lesson authors for this year’s program.

We encourage everyone to come join us this summer for a program that we hope will make history once again. Find out more about our camp weeks and register for camp at summerspark.stab.org, or write to us at spark@stab.org with any questions.
Summer STEM Guide

Activities & Events

 

Live & Local

  • May 15 - EcoHacks hosted by Albemarle High School’s SWENext is a beginner-friendly virtual hackathon for 14-18 year olds who are interested in computer science, regardless of experience. More info.
  • May 16 at 4:30pm - Empathy and Game Design with Eileen Krepkovich, research scientist and biomedical engineer at Barron Associates. This workshop focuses on using empathy as part of game design. Learn about the design thinking process and how it can be used for designing many things - from video games to medical devices. Your feedback will be used to improve a game currently in design! Part of the Tech-Girls Online Workshop series for girls in 5th through 8th grade. Registration is free, but space is limited.
  • May 20 at 5:30pm - Empathy and Game Design with Eileen Krepkovich (repeat) Registration is free, but space is limited.
  • May 29 at 10am - Design, Code and Stitch with Sarah FitzHenry & Kim Wilkens, co-hosts of Once Upon a Tech podcasts. Did you know you can code patterns and send them to an embroidery machine to bring them to life? Learn how to create your own patterns and help Kim test out her new embroidery machine! Part of the Tech-Girls Online Workshop series for girls in 5th through 8th grade. Registration is free, but space is limited.
  • May 30 at 4:30pm - Computational modeling with Dr. Julie Quinn, assistant professor in Engineering Systems and Environment at UVA. Almost every decision you make is under uncertainty. Will I need a rain jacket in the afternoon? Will they say yes if I ask them to the movies? Is 1 hour enough time to finish this assignment? Oftentimes, we can use computational modeling to simulate different scenarios of what might happen in the future to inform what decisions are best on average, or what decisions minimize the worst case outcome. Part of the Tech-Girls Online Workshop series for girls in 5th through 8th grade. Registration is free, but space is limited.
  • Tech-Girls - Create a New Story! What's it like to work in tech? Find out from folks working in tech right here in Charlottesville. Tech-Girls is excited to launch Create a New Story in collaboration with Charlottesville Women in Tech, Charlottesville Business Innovation Council and Spark CS from St. Anne's-Belfield School to help you create your story in tech!
  • C4K combines mentoring and technology to prepare youth for brighter futures. Participation is free and open to all students in 6th-12th grades who are eligible for free or reduced lunches at school. More info.

Virtual & Global

Get Involved!


Tech-Girls is a program from Charlottesville Women in Tech, a non-profit in Charlottesville, VA. The mission of Tech-Girls is to empower girls to imagine and achieve their future dreams in our tech-savvy world. You can help inspire the next generation of women in tech by becoming a volunteer. You do not need to be a tech expert to be involved. Come learn with the girls!
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