“I’m just a girl who is breaking barriers. Try and keep up.”
That message was on stickers that were part of a swag table at the inaugural Jackson County Girl Powered Workshop on Oct. 23 at Seymour Middle School.
The 31 girls in grades 7 to 12 from eight county schools attending the event serve as proof that robotics and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) aren’t just for boys.
According to the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation, Girl Powered Workshops engage and inform young women about STEM and robotics opportunities available to them.
Any time in October, teachers, coaches, event partners and mentors are invited to host a Girl Powered Workshop to honor International Day of the Girl.
Amy Jo Miller Kuzel, who coaches the robotics teams at Seymour Middle School and Seymour High School, said she found out about the opportunity from an email.
“Every year, I’ve been like, ‘I want a girl-powered team,’ and (the girls on the robotics teams) are like, ‘I know,’” she said, smiling. “Then finally this year, that’s when all of the high-schoolers were like, ‘Let’s band together.’”
The workshop was a perfect opportunity to do just that.
“I saw an email and I was like, ‘Hmm, what’s this girls workshop email all about?’” she said. “I asked about it, and it seemed like it was just get together, it could be anything you want, it didn’t cost anything. You just need a host to host it.”
Miller Kuzel created a flyer and emailed it to local robotics coaches and Jackson County Industrial Development Corp.
From there, it went out to local companies in hopes that female engineers could attend.
In the end, she wound up with girls to attend and also female engineers and others from local industries, including Cummins Seymour Engine Plant, Walmart Distribution Center and BSM Groups.
Plus, Walmart donated supplies, Jamie and Michael Baker bought pizzas and stickers and VEX Robotics and Optimus donated swag.
“The community support was so warming and engaging,” Miller Kuzel said. “They were just like, ‘We want to help.’ This is just so cool. It makes it easy. I was thinking, ‘Oh, (the girls) will watch a movie, they’ll sit around and talk.’ OK then I was like, ‘But we’ve got to have activities.’ It’s just perfect.”
After all of the girls arrived, Miller Kuzel had them find others their age they didn’t know and form groups to rotate between four stations.
At one, they made a rubber band catapult to practice launching and resistance with rubber bands.
At another one, the goal was to improve on a poor design of a rubber band car.
“They have to build that and maybe redesign, and there’s not all the parts, so they have to figure out how to replace when you don’t have something,” Miller Kuzel said.
The raspberry pi station involved building a miniature computer on a circuit board, and the binary bracelets station had them using different colored beads to do binary code with their name.
One purpose of forming groups was to practice the interview process, Miller Kuzel said.
“I want them to actually be comfortable talking to and interviewing the adults,” she said. “That was the big thing, career pathways, seeing what their careers are.”
Another purpose was to recognize other girls so they can work together with them at robotics competitions.
“They are going to look better to the judges by knowing each other and being able to pal around with them,” Miller Kuzel said.
Who knows? They could wind up as an alliance at a competition.
“A girl-powered alliance,” Miller Kuzel said, smiling.
Each station was manned by employees of Cummins, BSM Groups and Walmart.
Lauren Ferrenburg, a machining engineer at the Seymour Engine Plant, helped at the raspberry pi station. The Columbus native has worked for the diesel engine maker for three and a half years.
She said she was drawn to engineering because the possibilities are endless.
“There’s always room for improvement. There’s always room for innovation, lots of collaboration,” she said. “It’s really been great to be able to see your work come to fruition.”
She works in the machining center on the high horsepower block line of the worldwide company’s largest engine, the 95-liter QSK95, known as Hedgehog.
“It is amazing,” she said.
As a female engineer, she was happy to be invited to the workshop just for girls.
“Whenever I was in high school, I was one of very few girls that were in engineering, and so I really wanted to give back and be able to help our future women engineers,” Ferrenburg said. “Stuff like this just makes me very happy because I get to see in a way my former self as my now self, knowing and seeing that this is our future of our next wave of women engineers.”
She was impressed with the turnout.
“That is so invigorating to me,” Ferrenburg said. “Even when I was in college at the University of Louisville pursuing my BSME (Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering), I was one of maybe five women in my 25-person class, so it makes me so happy to see further equity for women in this field.”
SMS seventh-graders Bella Stair and Mackenzie Sellers were among the workshop’s attendees.
Bella started robotics at a young age, while Mackenzie has done it for two years.
“I’m on the robotics team, and I’ve been doing robotics since I was really little,” Bella said. “I got my first robotics kit whenever I was 5, and I loved doing it. I always liked math, and then for Christmas, my parents got me a little robotics kit, and I fell in love with it and I signed up to be in robotics camps.”
Mackenzie said she was drawn to robotics because she likes to build.
“I was good friends with the coach, and the coach was like, ‘Hey, how about you try this out?’” she said. “I was friends with his daughter, too, so I went and I tried out last year, and he said, ‘So now, you use your sassiness and your bossiness and you’re a good team leader.’ I was the first one last year to get my robot moving.”
Both girls liked having an opportunity to gather with other girls with a common interest.
“A bunch of girls can get together, and you don’t have to know them yet. You can get to know them, and you can make new friends,” Bella said.
“It gets more girls interested in it,” Mackenzie said. “I know I’m not alone.”
Miller Kuzel summed up the reception for the first year of a Girl Powered Workshop locally.
“I think it’s marvelous,” she said.
