A Unique VDC Site and collaboration to “Teach Our Youth Technology” (TOYTech)
The Virtual Development Center (VDC) at Smith College, in Northampton, Massachusetts, was established two years ago in conjunction with the school’s new Picker Engineering Program, the first engineering degree program at a women’s college. The Picker Program aims to link engineering with humanistic concerns while educating the public about what engineers actually do.
Smith’s relationship with the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology began serendipitously, before a 2002 meeting in Palo Alto, California between the Director of the Picker Engineering Program, a senior director of corporate and foundation relations at Smith College, and the director of university relations at Hewlett-Packard. An HP executive on loan to the Institute, Nancy Levitt, saw what the Picker philosophy of socially beneficial technology development shared with the Institute. Levitt invited Anita Borg to the meeting, and soon after, Smith became the Institute’s ninth VDC campus. HP supported the new Picker program with a $250,000 equipment donation.
Smith, however, was an anomaly in terms of the other VDCs, which were on bigger campuses in more established engineering programs. As a result, says Sandra Doucett, Smith’s senior director of corporate and foundation relations, .On the way home, we were brainstorming how we could structure our VDC, and we came up with the idea for TOYTech..
In the TOYTech (”Teaching Our Youth Technology”) program, Smith first-year engineering students work in local elementary and middle-school classrooms to develop gender-neutral educational modules and teaching tools that are toylike and fun. The Smith students get hands-on interaction with the community.their .clients..and the schoolchildren get to meet female role models in a traditionally male-dominated field. “Imagine when the classroom teachers say to their students, ‘Today the engineers are coming to work with us,’ and in walks a group of young women,” Doucett says. “This is probably the first exposure these kids have to people who are going to become professional engineers, and it’s a roomful of women. That’s a powerful message to send.” In the VDC students also create and design new ideas for toys.
Dr. Domenico Grasso has headed the Picker Program since its inception. “We need more women in engineering because we need greater diversity at the design table,” Grasso says. “We think our program is attracting students to engineering with its socially relevant combination of science and humanities. Many students have said the VDC was among the best experiences of their first year of college.”
Smith students attended their first VDC Conference in April 2002 to present their project, a set of 15 toy-based, education modules demonstrating concepts related to propulsion, liquids, pulleys and gears. Former astronaut Dr. Sally Ride, America ’s first woman in space, keynoted the conference and watched the presentation. Later, Ride contacted Grasso about Smith possibly becoming part of her Sally Ride Science Club for upper elementary and middle school girls interested in science, math, and technology.
The following year, Smith partnered with the Sally Ride Science Club, toy manufacturer Hasbro, and Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, to launch TOYChallenge, an outreach activity to engage middle-school-aged students, especially girls, in science and engineering and to inspire them to pursue careers in those fields. TOYchallenge includes a national competition, which is sponsored by Hasbro and Sigma Xi. Teams of fifth- through eighth-graders create and design a new toy or game in categories specified by the sponsors. Half the team members must be girls, and each team must have an adult coach.
This past spring, Smith hosted a TOYchallenge regional showcase, with Smith engineering faculty serving as judges alongside Hasbro toy designers. The showcase featured the top 10 teams pre-selected from more than 240 entries, as well as 40 other teams who were encouraged to finalize their toys for presentation at the national TOYchallenge Festival. At the finals in San Diego in July, three teams won a week at Space Camp for each team member; Hasbro action figures created in their likeness and a behind-the-scenes tour of Hasbro; and a VIP tour of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center with private question-and-answer session with an astronaut.
Dawn Scaparotti, assistant director of the Picker Engineering Program at Smith, was a judge at the finals.
“Research shows that at a certain age girls tend to lose interest and confidence in the classes critical to future careers in science,” Scaparotti says. “At Smith, we believe that if you introduce kids early in life to the creative and collaborative aspects of engineering through a program like TOYchallenge, the fun will carry them through the hard classes later. If the goal is to increase the number of people from underrepresented groups in engineering, you must ensure that people are educated in those fields and introduce them to the fields when they’re young.”
Scaparotti says that during the national judging, she asked each team what had been the most challenging aspect of building their toy, and the answers surprised her.
“Every single team said that learning how to work in a group and how to compromise were the hardest parts.not learning the math behind the concept or picking what material to use for the toy, but working together,” she says. “Participating in these team-based projects exposes and encourages the development of collaborative skills. Both school children and Smith undergraduates benefit from this teamwork. So when the Northampton schoolchildren see Smith students in their classrooms, and the TOYchallenge teams see the judging teams evaluating projects, they see role models working together.”
Scaparotti, who takes over direction of the Smith VDC this fall, says her goal for the program is greater collaboration. “While aspects of the VDC encourage women to think critically and creatively, the teamwork encourages and teaches collaboration as well. We believe that collaboration is a skill necessary for success throughout life.”