Workshops Offered During 2019 Girls STEM Summer Camp, Eureka!
- In summer of 2019, this camp ran from July 8th to August 2nd from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- Daily STEM sessions were from 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays and from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. and 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
- Personal Development and Sport, Health and Wellness activities took place daily.
- Fridays were designated for field trips which included career exploration trips like a visit to the Temple University Innovation Lab with an anesthesiology demonstration and Drexel's exCITe Center, rock climbing at the University of Pennsylvania, a MERCK workshop and lunch for networking, ice skating at the Blue Cross River Rink, a visit to the Stevens Institute of Technology, exploring Hoboken, New Jersey, participating in the Eureka! Olympics at the University of Pennsylvania gym, and visiting a construction site, the Penn First Hospital.
- Each workshop session was attended by 36 girls with a number of Drexel facilitators and Girls inc. coordinators.
- Workshop locations included the Innovation Studio, labs and classrooms, or in the field.
Photos from 2019 Workshops
2019 Workshops Offered
Week One: Technology
Science Writing - STEM: Write down the Wonder!
Instructor: Wendy Plump
In this workshop, students will be given a brief introduction to science writing. They will use their iPads to write a short opening paragraph about a designated science topic and each table of participants will read their responses. They will be given pointers for developing their scientific posters and will present their posters during the fourth week.
Rooftop Gardens
Instructor: Hamed Yassaghi (with Shideh Amiri, Madeline Cook, Meghan Barrett, Gabrielle Grajewski, Henrietta Tsosie, and Sanzhar Almakyn)
In this workshop, students explore the impact of implementing three different rooftop materials on building interior temperatures. The purpose is to examine the viability of green vegetation as a rooftop to combat the urban heat island effect. They will start their experiment by building small boxes representing their houses, with three different rooftop materials, which are aluminum (as a good reflector), black surface (as a good absorber) and green vegetation (as a third type of insulator). Then they will place their boxes under the radiate heating system built with multiple concentrated light bulbs and measure the temperatures inside their boxes with digital temperature gauges for two minutes. At they end of this experiment, participants will compare the effect of using three types of materials as a rooftop (reflector, absorber and insulator) on interior temperatures and choose the best material for their rooftops as a response to urban heat island.
Introduction to Circuits
Instructor: James Lo (with Ian Marcus, Yumen Yang, and Alix Foster)
Participants will learn the basics of circuits and test and build a flashlight made from a small section of LED strip lights.
Origami with Sensors
Instructor: James Lo (with Ian Marcus, Yumen Yang, and Alix Foster)
In the Origami circuit workshop, participants will learn the electric circuit fundamentals include voltage, current, and resistance. Participants will build a prototype simple serial circuit using small batteries as the power source and LED lights as the load. This circuit will then be integrated with Origami structures participants elected to construct. The practicality of integration the circuit into a paper-based structure allow the participants to improve upon their design to create a final product, an origami that can light up with a squeeze of the paper structure.
Introduction to Arduino and Sensors
Instructor: Brandon Terranova (with Yumen Yang and Gabe Grajewski)
Participants will experiment with Arduino sensors and will be introduced to some basics of Arduino code using the Gemma M0 Arduino processor.
Introduction to Arduino Hardware
Instructor: Brandon Terranova (with Madeline Cook, Cory Christopher, and Gabe Grajewski)
Participants will learn how to wire the Gemma M0 Arduiono to control a strip of lights. Students will also be able to experiment with sensor input to control the light strip.
Technology in Fashion: Wearable Technology Planning
Instructor: Shideh Amiri (with Ian Marcus, Yumen Yang, Alix Foster, and Madeline Cook)
Participants will work in groups to design a piece of simple clothing (e.g., belts, bracelets, necklaces, headbands) around a pre-built sensor and LED Arduino circuit. Within one hour, they will start the process of creating their piece.
Technology in Fashion: Wearable Technology Development
Instructor: Shideh Amiri (with Ian Marcus, Yumen Yang, Alix Foster, and Madeline Cook)
Participants will continue to build their wearable technology and present their groups work in the last 30 minutes of the session.
Week Two: Environmental Science
Water Pollution: Build a Clean Water Filtration System
Instructor: Mira Olson, Saeed Keshani, Leena Shevade, and Asa Lewis (with Madeline Cook, Meghan Barrett, and Sanzhar Almakyn)
Participants will design and construct their model filters using eco-friendly materials and will test the effectiveness of their design.
Acid Rain and Landfill Activities
Instructor: Ezra Wood, Shannon Capps, Saeed Keshani, and Asa Lewis (with Alex Guffey, Yumen Yang, and Meghan Barrett)
Participants learn the effects of acid rain on plant growth over the short term and extrapolate the results to better understand the effects of acid rain at larger scales. During this session, they will also construct a model landfill using food waste and observe gas emissions from their constructed landfill.
Microbiology and Air Pollution
Instructor: Saeed Keshani, Asa Lewis, and Leena Shevade (with Ian Marcus, Yumen Yang, and Alix Foster)
Participants learn about the life of microorganisms in the environment and will learn the importance of self hygiene. They will also play the role of nitrogen atoms traveling through the nitrogen cycle to gain understanding of the varied pathways through the cycle and relevance of nitrogen to living things.
Improving Habitat - Oil Spill Clean-Up
Instructor: Saeed Keshani, Leena Shevade, and Asa Lewis (with Ian Marcus, Yumen Yang, Alix Foster, and Julia Martin)
Participants learn the effects of oil spills on the marine environment and will test different ways to clean up an oil spill.
Solar Energy: Design a Solar Powered House
Instructor: Saeed Keshani, Leena Shevade, and Asa Lewis (with Yumen Yang and Alex Guffey)
Participants learn the basics of solar energy and how it can be converted to useful electricity in household applications.
Wind Energy: Design a Windmill
Instructor: Saeed Keshani, Leena Shevade, and Asa Lewis (with Madeline Cook and Gabe Grajewski)
Participants will construct a windmill and use this to see how different environmental factors affect the energy produced from a wind turbine.
Week Three: Engineering
Ready! Set! Design!
Instructor: Alissa Sperling (with Nariman Mostafavi, Hamed Yassaghi, Yumen Yang, and Gabriel Grajewski)
Put your design skills to the test in this past paced challenge! Participants will be given an assortment of every day office supplies and asked to create a novel solution to a surprise engineering challenge, all before time runs out.
Cantilever Bridge Challenge
Instructor: Alisa Sperling and Nariman Mostafavi (with Shideh Amiri, Madeline Cook, Gabriel Grajewski, Henrietta Tsosie, and Sanzhar Almakyn)
Cantilevers are used in a variety of modern architectural applications. From bridges to balconies, engineers must balance strength, weight, and expense in construction. Participants will use plastic straws and tape to build the longest, strongest, and lightest cantilever bridge.
SWE Rollercoaster Design Challenge
Instructor: Society of Women Engineer Members Jillian Saunders, Khadija Koita, Ashley Bishop, Isadora Viana Duarte, and Katherine Comisac
During this challenge, students will be introduced to important principles using civil and mechanical engineering; kinetic and potential energy. Through online simulations, students will create virtual rollercoasters with different loops, hill heights, and lengths, in order to better understand the relationship between kinetic and potential energy. After the online simulations, students will divide into teams and build a real prototype of a rollercoaster. This will allow them to see kinetic and potential energy in action and in a fun and engaging way.
Indoor Kites
Instructor: Richard Cairncross and Shideh Amiri (with Ian Marcus, Yumen Yang, Alix Foster, Julia Martin, and Sanzhar Almakyn)
In this workshop, participants will evaluate the aerodynamic characteristics of kites that can fly at low speeds, indoors, without wind. Participants will build a prototype kite from lightweight materials and evaluate the performance using concepts from aerodynamics such as center of gravity, lift, drag, glide ratio, and stability. Based on observations of flight performance and aerodynamics concepts, participants will propose, implement, test, and evaluate modifications to their kite design.
Architectural Design with Sketch Up
Instructor: Brandon Terranova and Alissa Sperling (with Shideh Amiri, Yumen Yang, and Gabriel Grajewski)
It's the year 2035 and you're rich, famous, and in the market for your dream home. A five car garage, stables for horses, a three story slide - no request is too wild for your opulent taste. Act as both the architect and client as you design fabulous pads using google sketch up software.
Build a Solar Car
Instructor: Alissa Sperling and Shideh Amiri (with Ian Marcus, Yumen Yang, Alix Foster, Madeline Cook, and Hamed Yassaghi)
It's off to the races with only the power of the sun to get you going! Participants will design and build solar cars in an exciting day culminating in the Eureka! 500; a high stakes race for solar car dominance.
Week Four: Construction
Framing a Wall
Instructor: Chris Fiori and Kathleen Short (with Alex Guffey, Yumen Yang, Madeline Cook, Cory Christopher, Gabrielle Grajewski and Sanzhar Almakyn)
Students will receive an overview of the entire project they will be accomplishing throughout the week. An overview of what makes a home healthy will be covered. Then the focus will transition to the way in which homes are built. Specifically, we will investigate the way the walls of a home are constructed as well as what goes inside and outside the walls.
In the laboratory, we will be framing a corner section of a wall using pre-cut lengths of 2 x 4 wood. The wood will be connected using hammers and nails and each student will have the opportunity to measure, nail, and level the frame.
Concrete and Masonry Installation
Instructor: Chris Fiori and Kathleen Short (with Ian Marcus, Yumen Yang, Alix Foster, and Sanzhar Almakyn)
Students will place pre-cut sheets of drywall to the inside of the wall and plywood to the outside of walls that they framed the day before. The fundamentals of concrete and concrete use will be discussed. The students will mix concrete and then use it to attach a finish to the outside of the walls. They will place a combination of brick and stone using the concrete mortar to set the stone.
Electrical Work
Instructor: Chris Fiori and Kathleen Short (with Alex Guffey, Madeline Cook, Cory Christopher, and Gabriel Grajewski)
What goes inside the walls that help make the home healthy and usable for the people who live in it? The focus in the laboratory will be on electricity and lights. The students will install a small light fixture and an electrical outlet into the wall they built. Once the electrical features are installed and wired, we will test to ensure they installed the fixture and outlet correctly.
Working with Insulation
Instructor: Chris Fiori and Kathleen Short (with Ian Marcus, Alix Foster, Madeline Cook, Cory Christopher, and Sanzhar Almakyn)
Insulation and the role that it plays in keeping a home at a comfortable temperature during all seasons will be discussed. In the laboratory, the students will install insulation into their wall sections and then close up the wall.