GBAM campers tackle engineering while having a blast
7/31/2014 MechSE Communications
This year's GBAM camp (Girls Building Awesome Machines), part of the GAMES series of summer camps hosted by the College of Engineering, welcomed 24 high school girls enthusiastic about learning mechanical engineering.
Written by MechSE Communications
This year's GBAM camp (Girls Building Awesome Machines), part of the GAMES series of summer camps hosted by the College of Engineering, welcomed 24 high school girls enthusiastic about learning mechanical engineering.
The camp took place in and around Mechanical Engineering Lab the week of July 13-19. MechSE professors Elif Ertekin and Matt West, along with Education Coordinator Joe Muskin and many MechSE graduate students, led the campers through activities that included 3D printing, waterjet cutting, making graphene conductive circuits, building a prosthetic arm, testing the dynamics of "funny" fluids, experiencing a cleanroom, and learning about accelerometers. They also took a field trip to the Caterpillar facility at the Research Park and the Indoor Climate Research and Training facility at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center.
Throughout the week the girls also spent time building mini wind turbines and a wind farm, and ended the week with a wind turbine competition.
"This year's GBAM camp was a huge success, and the girls had a lot of fun while also becoming immersed in a wide variety of mechanical engineering topics. I think we were really able to influence their perception of what mechanical engineering can really mean for them and how it influences our daily lives," said West.