Design Your World Workshop

The Etiquette Creative Team, Design Your World 2012
Photo: Lauren Von Eper

If you have ever wondered what a mass of 200 excited-about-STEAM fourth and fifth grade girls would look like, you could definitely find this sight at the first ever Design Your World STEM Conference for Girls at the University of Texas at Arlington this Saturday.
With support from marquee-level sponsors like Raytheon and ExxonMobil, these girls are in for a day of learning, experimentation and design. Astronaut Anousheh Ansari will speak about being the first female private space explorer and what it was like to conduct research at the International Space Station. Really, this conference has it all: activities, speakers, tours, awards, awesome t-shirts, astronauts! Letia Blanco, the Conference Organizer, is doing an impressive job working with her team on the many elements of the conference. We absolutely cannot wait.

Etiquette will take part in the festivities by sponsoring its first LilyPad Arduino Activity Session. For an hour and a half, the Etiquette team will work with twenty girls to teach them the basics of prototyping with the LilyPad Arduino. We'll go through:

1. How the LilyPad works with a little bit of it's history 
2. Describe components while relating them to the human body as an analogy
3. Come up with ideas for sensors and actuators
4. Review the three basic pillars: Sewing, Electronics, Coding with the LilyPad
5. Prototype: Complete the 'blinky' sketch using alligator clips to prototype
6. Evaluate & Change: come up with new ideas and potential uses
7. Distribute and describe the take-home kit
8. LED PHOTO SESSION!

Wish us luck!

*An extra big thanks to Lindsay at SparkFun for the awesome discount on materials*