It's no secret that there tend to be fewer women than men working in the fields of science and engineering -- it's been reported in news articles, debated in forums and even part of an ad campaign designed to encourage girls to develop an interest in science. As students at Hopkins, it may sometimes seem hard to believe that there are young girls whose interest in science is neither promoted nor encouraged.
Enter the program Ready Set Design, an event dedicated to the promotion and encouragement of girls developing their skills in science and engineering. Run through Hopkins' chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Ready Set Design was created as a way for middle-school-aged girls to gain some experience with what an engineer does.
Established three years ago by two female engineering students, the program slowly gained support from the Whiting School of Engineering. Originally the program focused on the completion of a variety of different projects, with a range of focus within engineering, but it has gradually evolved so as to focus on one specific facet of the discipline. The most recent Ready Set Design event was this past Saturday, March 24 in the Glass Pavilion with the subject matter focusing on "Engineering help for injuries and disabilities."
On Saturday, April 7, Ready Set Design will hold its last event of the academic year, with concentration in "Engineering and climate change."
Overseen by Lester Su, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Sarah Webster, a graduate student in that department, there is a student committee responsible for the planning of the bi-semesterly event, whose responsibilities range from organizing the types of projects the girls will create to advertising in middle schools within the Baltimore area. The bulk of volunteers who work with the girls are Hopkins students from various service groups on campus, including the Society of Women Engineers, the co-ed service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega and the engineering honor society Tau Beta Pi; however, individual volunteers are welcome.
"Most of the girls have an interest, sometimes they are signed up by their parents," said sophomore physics major Lia Klofas, who is the event's student organizer. Klofas initially discovered the program through a friend who was volunteering. After the founding members graduated, she took on the role of organizing the minutiae. "They don't really know what engineering's about, and then they come and have fun."
Coming and having fun is the number one priority in mind for Ready Set Design's coordinators. There is an "emphasis on brainstorming, and that no idea is stupid and that the girls should come up with as many ideas as they can," Klofas said. "We don't focus on [who is] the best ... it's not a competitive aspect. Part of Ready Set Design's goals is to make engineering fun and easy for the girls ... We just want them to come out and have fun."
The day is divided into two different sessions and structured like a mini-workshop. The girls are welcomed to the program and introduced to the basics of what it means to be an engineer and how widespread engineering is in daily life. "It's fun to show girls what it's like to be an engineer and help them with their fun design projects," said sophomore chemical and biomolecular engineering major Megan Cox, who heard about the organization from Klofas.
The interaction between the middle-school girls and Hopkins students is one of the key aspects that makes this program unique; the goal is to provide an atmosphere for younger girls who may not ordinarily be interested in the sciences to have an example of what they could strive to achieve. Pairing fun with an educational experience allows the girls to gain hands-on abilities without necessarily the awareness that what they are accomplishing is "scientific."
The girls are then posed a problem. This past weekend's quandary had to do with designing for people with limited mobility. They are divided into groups of two to four girls and assisted by a Hopkins student. "We try to get only girls to work with girls, which places the guys [volunteers] in the awkward place of working in the machine shop," Klofas said. Each individual group is given a unique problem to solve to prevent inter-group competition. Among the dilemmas being solved was finding a way for someone with limited use of their arms to put on their shoes and brush their teeth.
After properly evaluating what needs to be accomplished, the girls brainstorm about what it is they exactly need to do. Together with Hopkins volunteers, the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders work through the entire design process, from sketching initial prototypes to building the models to scale with the various materials the program provides, ranging from arts and craft type products such as felt, pipe cleaners and popsicle sticks to dowels and wood. After completing their projects, the girls self-tested and presented their work to the larger group and their parents in a short ceremony.
While it is hard to determine the success rate for a program such as this, the response from the girls themselves has been positive. Turnouts vary on the time of year; this past weekend the event was attended by approximately 30 girls, a fact that Klofas attributes to a late start in advertising. But the permission slips for the next weekend were available and readily snatched up, a sign that Ready Set Design is doing something right; Klofas mentioned how "one girl has back for, I think, all three years. She just loves it; she comes back and brings her friends."
Participation is free for all the girls, as the program is subsidized by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Hopkins Alumni Association and the National Science Foundation. It is the opportunity to partake in such a program that thrills sophomore biomedical engineering major Kaitlin O'Keefe. "When I was in middle school I didn't have really good science and engineering -- it's probably good to get girls into the field," she said. "It's really nice to see how some of the girls get into it. It might not work, but they get really into it. There was one little girl telling us that things could be kept fresh by putting holes into a bucket containing food... the other girls were all cheering `yeah'."
It's enthusiasm such as that which Ready Set Design hopes to inspire within the girls. Who knows -- maybe in five years there will be a host of Mechanical Engineering majors who credit days like this as inspiration.
For more information, please visit http://www.jhu.edu/~asme/readysetdesign.html. If you're a Hopkins student and you'd like to volunteer, contact Lia Klofas at jklofas1@jhu.edu.
