Girls + Robots = Fun!

On Saturday, August 22nd, a group of elementary and middle school girls headed downtown to the School of Informatics & Computing (SOIC) on IUPUI's campus to participate in an all-girls, FIRST LEGO League (FLL) robotics training.

The girls and their adult coaches started this half-day session all together for an FLL program overview and some highlights of the FLL Core Values. They then split into sections with coaches in one room and FLL-ers in another to continue their trainings.

While the coaches covered a technical training on programming and running the robots, the girls split into groups of 3 and paired up with high school robotics students. Each group went over the basics of building and programming a robot to run specific missions, and allowed all the FLL girls to get some hands-on experience with the robots. It also gave them an opportunity to learn about the FIRST program and hear from the high school girls about what it's like to be on an upper level robotics team, especially as a female student in an often predominantly male program.

After each team had practiced sending their robots on a few missions, it was time to take an IUPUI-led tour of the SOIC's Media Arts Research & Learning Arcade (MARLA) as well as the Advanced Visualization Lab. MARLA provides students access to a professional-level game studio and gallery for those interested in 2D and 3D game design and animation, while the Advanced Visualization Lab boasts high-resolution displays and projection-based virtual reality devices. Needless to say, the FLL-ers were beyond thrilled with the opportunity to explore and interact with all of this technology!

A big thanks to our high school girls who volunteered their Saturday to come and help the younger girls learn more about robotics! These high schoolers represented 3 FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) teams: Carmel High School's FRC 868 TechHOUNDS, Western High School's FRC 292 PantherTech, and Southport High School's FRC 1529 CyberCards. 

We are lucky to have partnered with some great organizations to put on this all-girls FLL training. We had just as much fun as the girls themselves and look forward to a repeat event!

Thanks to the great organizations who planned and hosted this event:

Girl Develop It Brings Tech Skills to Indianapolis

We caught up with Lindsay Siovaila, co-founder of the Indianapolis Girl Develop It chapter to find out more about the organization and get advice from a woman in the coding world. Lindsay is a Senior Solutions Developer at Salesforce where she helps build tools and processes that help the Sales team demo their software. She worked with her friends Erica and Virginie to bring a chapter to Indianapolis after noticing that there were quite a few Girl Develop It chapters scattered throughout the Midwest (Chicago, Ann Arbor, Detroit, Cincinnati, and Cleveland), but not in their city. Lindsay explains:

“I first heard about Girl Develop It in 2014 via some blogs I read online that discussed the gender gap in the tech world and various efforts that have been going on to help bring more women and minorities into the tech world. I have always been interested in giving back to the community by teaching and tutoring, and Girl Develop It appealed to me since it was a chance to teach valuable tech skills to people who are curious about web development but don't really have a community or background in tech.”

GDI’s target audience is women who want to begin exploring web development or continue learning web development, but anyone is welcome to attend the classes and events. They welcome all skill levels and encourage questions! We asked Lindsay if she could offer a little advice for a total beginner who just wants to get started, and she shared a few pointers:

1. Online resources are a great place to start, “but the real learning happens when you’re working on a real project and have a real problem to solve.” Think of a simple project, like a website showcasing your photography or favorite recipes, and then put your knowledge to use developing that project.
2. Find a mentor that you’re comfortable with and who is further down the road in experience. Then ask them LOTS of questions. “One secret you might not know about developers is that we are all learning from someone else at some point - no one is the master of any topic, and we are all dependent on each other for help when we get stuck.
3. Making mistakes is part of the learning process and is completely normal! A lot of time on real development projects is spent working out all the kinks in the code, so being comfortable finding errors or logic flaws is integral!

As far as the future goes, Lindsay wants to see Girl Develop It become a place where women can feel empowered to learn web development, and then use those skills to impact the community in a meaningful way. Another passion of Lindsay’s is the idea of passing on the skills women learn from GDI. She hopes that by offering these classes it will create new teachers and mentors for the future. Ultimately, the industry will become stronger with more women in tech and web development roles.

Be sure to follow Girl Develop It on Twitter, like them on Facebook, and, most importantly, sign up for an event on their MeetUp page!

Women in STEM: Gail Farnsley

In honor of Women's History Month, we sat down with TPF4Y board member Gail Farnsley to talk about her career, which began with programming and computer science and has shifted and grown through jobs both in the U.S. and abroad, to advising corporate IT leadership. She is currently an Executive Partner with Gartner, working with CIOs and other executive clients as a trusted advisor to provide expertise and guidance to help them achieve their business objectives. 

"I think the most important thing is to find something you are interested in," said Gail, when asked what advice she has for girls following in her footsteps. "I didn't set out to do this job; in fact, I am sure I had no idea jobs like this existed." 

Encouraged by a high school math teach who taught a programming class she liked, Gail got a degree in computer science. She had always liked puzzles and programming was like one giant puzzle, allowing her to figure out how to get the computer to do what she wanted it to do. After a few years as a programmer, she moved on to designing programs, and from there started designing whole systems, not just individual applications. And with a more well-rounded view of the business side of things, she eventually moved into management, something she never thought she would end up doing.

"I would also advise being open to new opportunities," Gail continued, "things you might have never guessed you would like. I never had a plan that I would run IT for a company or even be a manager, but I focused on doing a great job in the role I had, and all those other opportunities opened up for me."

And what memorable opportunities they were. As an analyst at Emery Air Freight, Gail traveled to Europe for two weeks to meet with the leaders of their offices in France, Germany, and the UK to demo software for a new pricing system. As it turned out, she was in the UK on July 13, 1985, and was able to attend the Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium in person, a truly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. As a project leader at Georgia-Pacific, Gail had a chance to work with their TV studio, where they needed to select software to keep track of all the work they did. She was chosen to go to Hollywood to visit a company that had developed a software tool that met their needs. When Gail first started with Cummins, she was working with their international distributors to implement new systems before Y2K. She traveled to Hong Kong, Singapore, Beijing, Tokyo, and Europe to work with those distributors to ensure the software would be able to support their systems. Gail's job with Cummins also afforded her the opportunity to live in the UK for two and a half years, where she was responsible for IT for all operations in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. 

Interestingly, Gail did not have many women who served as role models for her during her career.

"I think that is probably because when I was coming up through the ranks in IT, there were very few women in front of me," Gail speculates.

Luckily, she had some terrific male role models and mentors who pushed and encouraged her. All aspiring STEM students could use the helping hand, be it a man's or woman's, of a STEM mentor. Sign up with our US2020 initiative today and begin making a difference in the lives of Indianapolis students. You never know, you could be helping them towards the same inspiring career Gail has had.

FabFems Spotlight

While we could always use more, there are a good number of fabulous females in the vast network of STEM professionals. The problem is connecting with them. That's where the FabFems directory comes in. 

The National Girls Collaborative Project, in response to the lack of women in STEM fields, is implementing the FabFems Project. As the initial phase of the project, the FabFems directory will serve as a "national database of women in STEM professions who are inspiring role models for young women." This directory will allow young girls and girl-serving STEM programs and organizations to find inspirational role models with a simple search that can be modified by city, state, country, interest area, ethnicity, field of work, etc. Once a role model is found, her profile can be viewed with a picture and information about her career, education, interests, a biography, and what level of participation she is willing to entertain. Participation levels range from online role model, during- or after-school visits, and field trip and summer camp participation. 

As of today, we have fewer than 20 FabFems in Indiana with profiles in the directory. Let's increase that number now! Click here to create your FabFems profile and then share this info with any women you know would make fabulous female (STEM!) role models. 

Robots Invade the Library!

The second annual Learning Curve @ Central Library FLL Qualifying Tournament took place on Saturday, November 22nd and had 180 kids from 12 FIRST Lego League and 10 Junior FIRST Lego League teams excited about robotics!

The day began with opening ceremonies for all participants and then FLL-ers began their project, robot, and core values presentations to panels of judges. Jr.FLL-ers similarly began talking with their reviewers about their Lego models. After a lunch break and short Jr.FLL closing ceremony, the excitement began again with the FLL robot games, during which teams ran programmed missions for their robots to follow on a mat full of Lego game pieces.

Part of the teams’ registration requirements included bringing in donations for School on Wheels, a local nonprofit providing tutoring and educational advocacy for children impacted by homelessness. The donation drive resulted in the following items:

• 35 packs of notebook paper
• 38 boxes of snacks
• 25 spiral notebooks
• 126 pencil sharpeners
• 4 glue sticks
• 2 rulers
• 7 boxes of crayons
• 2 folders
• 1 pencil box
• 6 packs of markers
• 18 prizes
• 11 packs of pens
• 5 packs of pencils
• 2 pairs of scissors
• 2 packs of erasers
• 1 $15 staples gift card

“We are so excited and grateful to have all of this!” wrote Amber Ewing, the Director of Development for School on Wheels. “It means the world to us and to the kids we serve and will definitely go a long way in helping us to deliver our programming.”

TPF4Y partnered with the Learning Curve @ Central Library in 2013 in order to put on the first FLL QT hosted there. The event has been a huge success and we enjoy the time spent planning, preparing, and recruiting volunteers. 

Robots Are Here!

On November 14, 2014, Bankers Life Fieldhouse was transformed into the host site of the 3rd annual City of Indianapolis VEX Robotics Championship.

TPF4Y has worked closely with the Mayor’s office since 2012 to put on this spectacular event and, at the past two IndyVRCs, planned and implemented a STEM Fair full of vendors demoing hands-on activities that are, like the IndyVRC itself, free and open to the public.

The impact of the IndyVRC has grown significantly each year, with this year being our biggest event yet. Check out this by-the-numbers look at the 2014 IndyVRC:

TPF4Y looks forward to this event every year and is honored to help make an impact on the Mayor’s goal of making robotics programs available to every school in Indianapolis.