"Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 16:18:10 -0500
From: welg@csail.mit.edu
To: board@cra.org
Subject: Fwd: News article about girls and robots.
----- Forwarded message from white@MIT.EDU -----
Robots Draw Girls to Science
Victoria Times Colonist (BC, CAN) (02/08/07) Wilson, Carla
The upcoming Lego Robotics Festival will give the University of
Victoria in Canada an opportunity to show young girls that math,
science, and technology are fun. Scheduled for Feb. 17, 2007, 30
girls, from grades six to 12, working in teams of five, will assemble
a Lego Mindstorms NXT robot and program it for a hovercraft rescue
mission across a simulated river. Anissa Agah St. Pierre, coordinator
for Women in Engineering and Computer Science at the university, says
the one-day event will introduce some technical skills and
programming concepts to the girls. "They learn that math is cool and
important," she says. St. Pierre adds that by the sixth grade girls
may no longer have a favorable opinion of math, but on Monday a group
of 25 sixth-graders had the opportunity to run robots through
obstacle courses at the university and really enjoyed it. "You should
have heard the noise level," says a laughing St. Pierre. Women only
account for about 17 percent of computer science students and 11
percent of engineering students at universities, she says. Career
opportunities exist, but there are not a lot of role models for girls.
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolo ... 65f2d2&k=0
Here to View Full Article
to the top
Eric Grimson
Bernard Gordon Professor of Medical Engineering, EECS, MIT
Head, EECS, MIT
Lecturer on Radiology, Harvard Medical School
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The TC article was picked up by several other places, includingcanada.com - see
http://www.canada.com/components/print. ... 46&k=18267
robots.net (http://robots.net/article/2147.html)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
And, the height of fame - we even got an article and picture in the Martlet:
http://martlet.theorem.ca/view.php?aid=39321
++++++++++
Try putting LEGO Robotics Festival into Google to see a few more references.
Jon C. Muzio chair@csc.uvic.ca
Professor
http://www.cs.UVic.CA/~jmuzio/
Chair Tel - Office: 250 472 5704
Computer Science Tel - Mobile: 250 885 6566
FAX: 250 472 5708
Dept. of Computer Science
University of Victoria
P. O. Box 3055
Victoria, B. C.
V8W 3P6
Canada"