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Session 3563

Outreach Program with Summer Camps and Manufacturing Engineering Workshops Linda (Xiaolin) Chen Dave (Dae-Wook) Kim Hakan Gurocak

School of Engineering and Computer Science Washington State University, Vancouver, WA

Abstract This paper describes an outreach program developed as a partnership between the Girl Scouts, K-12 educational school district (ESD 112) and the WSU Vancouver Engineering and Science Institute. The program consists of two summer camps, namely, a Lego Robotics summer camp for 9-12 year olds and a Design and Discovery camp for 12- 17 year olds, and a series of four engineering workshops on materials, CAD, rapid prototyping and manufacturing processes. Details of the camps and the workshops are presented. In conclusion feedback from the students and their parents, lessons learned and future plans to sustain the program are reported.

1. Introduction In 2003, Governor Locke and the Washington State legislature allocated funding enabling Washington State University Vancouver to partner with Clark College and Lower Columbia College to develop the WSU Vancouver Engineering and Science Institute. The Institute is a public/private partnership and an inter-institutional partnership. Its goals are to provide: (1) Undergraduate programs giving access to high demand fields for the citizens of southwest Washington; (2) Graduate programs linked to the regional industry needs; and (3) Outreach to attract youth to the science and engineering fields. Graduate degree programs are offered by the university faculty in the respective departments.

Despite an increase in the number of women in engineering profession, the percentage of women in engineering schools and among practicing engineers continues to be around 20% and 10%, respectively [1-2]. There are various outreach and recruitment programs specifically targeting women including [3-6]. As a first step in developing the Institute outreach program we decided to partner with the Girl Scouts and the ESD 112 to provide two summer camps in July 2004 and four follow-up manufacturing workshops during the 2004-05 academic years. This partnership enabled the Institute to get started with the outreach activity by relying on the expertise of the Girl Scouts in managing young children in classroom settings and in reaching out to an already existing pool of potential students through the Girl Scouts Troops. The ESD 112 provided partial funding support and sponsored attendance of economically disadvantaged children to the camps and workshops.

Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education

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Gurocak, H., & Chen, X., & Kim, D. (2005, June), Outreach Program With Summer Camps And Engineering Workshops Paper presented at 2005 Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--14292