For the entire month of June I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to help my alma mater (VCU) make a difference within the Richmond community. The School of Engineering held the Discocvery Camp, a week long engineering camp for middle school children, where students came in and learned about different aspects of engineering.
My role in this “explosion” was to prepare the materials the kids would be working with and then help the students understand the concepts of what they were creating. On Tuesday, we worked with solar cells. Who knew you could make solar cells with fruit?! Either way the students seemed to be very excited to measure the current and voltages across their very own solar cells that they’ve created from household items (for the exception of the titanium dioxide). We then demonstrated how silicon based solar cells produced enough power to turn on LEDs and the motor of a small fan!
On Thursday, we worked with circuit boards to produce a “bike light”. The students got to chose 8 LEDs of their choice and had to pick the correct resistors for the respective color of the LED. After a long day of drilling holes (we wanted to teach the students circuit inspection), soldering, and troubleshooting, the students were excited to see their lights work! With the two switches, a variable resistor, and a trimmer, the students were able to make their bike lights stay completely on, revolve clockwise, or off. They were also able to adjust the brightness of their lights as well as the speed at which they revolved.
On Friday, we had two groups of about 20 girls come in and learn how to program the Lego NXT Robot using the Mindstorms software. They were super excited! It was so fun and very addictive. I took some time the day before to figure out the software myself.
We had one group in the morning and one group in the afternoon who managed to program their robots to get through the maze we created using tape on the floor!
Finally on Saturday, we went to the Richmond International Raceway where we participated in a local STEM day hosted by Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority for students and their fathers who live in low income housing. This was also a part of a belated Father’s Day Initiative.
Although very chaotic with more than 50 kids running around trying to get involved at each booth, we brought back the robots and had the kids figure out how to program the robots to go around a stool. By no means was this easy for them and some got frustrated – but with a bit of patience and help from myself and the other VCU students, they were able to be successful. And some just wanted to play with the robots and that was ok too! I was even quoted in an article for the Richmond Magazine!
All the students walked away with this nifty activity book created by VCU’s School of Engineering!
