By the end of the week, young women will have built and programmed an Arduino robot.
July 2, 2018 (Philadelphia) – TechGirlz, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering girls to be future technology leaders, will host its seventh annual Summer Camp from July 9-13, 2018. For five days, girls ages 12-15 will learn programming, basic electronics, and engineering using an Arduino microcontroller. By the end of the week, they will have built and programmed a robotic vehicle that they will present to family and bring home as mementos or to continue working on.
Building on a curriculum of workshops available year-round, TechGirlz’s Summer Camp puts technology into the hands of teen and preteen girls. For the second year, the camp will focus on building Arduino robots, following five years of entrepreneurship programming.
Arduino is a leading open-source hardware and software ecosystem. It is one of the most popular tools for STEM education, helping hundreds of thousands of students, designers, engineers, developers and makers to innovate in music, games, smart homes, farming, autonomous vehicles, and more.
This versatility is at the heart of TechGirlz’s mission.
“TechGirlz has done a lot of work to correct misconceptions about who a technologist is – but also what a technologist is,” said Tracey Welson-Rossman, Founder and CEO of TechGirlz. “Some girls may want to be programmers, but others want to pursue art, business, or even agriculture. Our workshops and camps show students that technology itself is not necessarily the career ‘path,’ but a tool that helps you excel in whatever path you choose.”
Campers will hear from John Cusimano, Director of Cybersecurity at AE Solutions; Tim Harris, Electrical Engineer at Schneider Electric; Nancy Ladin, Hardware Electrical Engineer at Lockheed Martin; Nikita Patel, Software Engineer at Lockheed Martin; and Sarah Johnson, a TechGirlz Teen Advisory Board member.
TechGirlz’s 2018 Summer Camp was made possible with support from Lockheed Martin, Villanova University, Kind LLC, and Drexel University.
For a full schedule of camp programming, visit TechGirlz online.
About TechGirlz
TechGirlz (www.TechGirlz.org) inspires young women to shatter the statistics. The organization’s aim is to help adolescent girls understand that a future in technology does not necessarily equate to “a boring computer job,” but instead transcends the cubicle into nearly every field imaginable. By encouraging women to participate in science and technology today, as well as providing a solid foundation of peers, mentors and positive role models, TechGirlz hopes to spark innovation, exhilaration and motivation in young women to become tomorrow’s tech leaders.
About Villanova
Villanova University was founded in 1842 by the Order of St. Augustine. To this day, Villanova’s Augustinian Catholic intellectual tradition is the cornerstone of an academic community in which students learn to think critically, act compassionately and succeed while serving others. There are more than 10,000 undergraduate, graduate and law students in the University’s six colleges.
