

As soon as they got their robots, the excitement grew. They learned how to program and immediately began experimenting and trying to figure out the next step before we taught them how to do it. The energy in the room was contagious, with 30 girls running back and forth from their computers to test their next idea. Once they got started, it was nearly impossible to bring them all back together. It was easy to see the friendships forming between the troops as the girls helped other groups. Even when they started building the arm for the bot and it was obvious that some of them hadn't build with LEGOs before, the energy didn't die down. Other girls stepped up to help their partners and showed amazing teamwork to get all the arms built.

All of the adult leaders gave us glowing feedback, and asked us if we would be interested in a follow-up workshop. Two of the most powerful comments we got from the girls was that the workshop made her "think about robots in a whole different way" and that "it made me think that engineering and science plays a big part in the world." Our goal was to show elementary school girls that the world of STEM is open to them whenever they want to step into it. Maybe it was only 4 hours with robots, but sometimes 4 hours is all it takes.