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Mission Statement

Provide numerous outreach opportunities that foster volunteering and education in the engineering and science fields in order to inspire girls and women from all diverse background and life stages to consider engineering as a highly desirable, meaningful, and rewarding career.

Vision Statement

Outreach is the top priority for the professional section of SWE-MN, thus reaching hundreds of potential engineering "students" and their parents and educators.

For interested outreach groups, download the Volunteer Request Form.

If you are interested in joining the committee and volunteering for Outreach Events, please email Rachel or Kristina at outreach@swe-mn.org. Please also check the SWE-MN calendar, newsletter, or weekly email for more information about upcoming events and how to volunteer.

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Girl Scout Patch Day

Come and VOLUNTEER for this opportunity to educate 150 Girl Scouts about engineering! The girls will learn about five different areas of engineering though various experiments. The girls will receive a T-shirt and earn a SWE badge. The event has built a great reputation over the past few years and has become a Girl Scout favorite; please help us to continue the success.

Experiments: (subject to change)
Brilliant Bracelets (Industrial Engineering)
Bouncy Balls (Chemical Engineering)
Steady Hands (Electrical Engineering)
Don’t Sink the Boat (Mechanical Engineering)

Location: Boston Scientific CRM - Building 3
(Same building as last year)
4100 Hamline Ave N St. Paul, MN 55112

Volunteer Time: October 28th: Set up and volunteer training
(optional) 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM

GSPD Event: October 29th
7:30 AM – 3:30 PM
Meals will be provided!

To volunteer, please email volunteer@swe-mn.org
Volunteers will have optional training during the setup period during the evening of Oct 28th, or earlier at BSC if requested.

Questions? E-mail Outreach Co-chairs:
Rachel Borchers & Kristina Wagstrom
outreach@swe-mn.org

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E=SMC2

A few of our members participated as guest speakers at the E=SMC2 camp this year and had the opportunity to meet with budding future engineers.

Here’s what Holly Kimball had to say about the event: “I was given the opportunity to discuss my schooling and career path to become a Principle Supplier Continuity Engineer at Medtronic. I talked for about 20 minutes and then answered questions for another 20 minutes. We discussed career choices, next steps and why I became an engineer. It
was nice to talk to students who are currently making these career choices. They also had some great questions! It was fun meeting new students and seeing their enthusiasm for the engineering field.”

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MN STEM Day at the Fair

STEM was on showcase on the opening day of the State Fair this past week. Carousel Park filled with STEM booths representing many Twin Cities organizations rallying to support STEM. Many offered activities for kids and families. SWE joined forces this year with SciGirls and St. Thomas Engineering to host an interactive booth demonstrating “squishy circuits.” By creating a completed circuit using the Play-Dough, battery packs, and LEDs, kids learned about the conductive and insulating prosperities of Play-Dough andbrought their own hand-formed crazy shapes to light. The volunteers and Fair-goers all around had a good time. The squishy circuits booth was well attended with a constant flow of young STEM enthusiasts. A highlight of the day overall was an announcement that FIRST Robotics is now a MSHSL sanctioned activity, making participation in robotics teams and STEM activities more accessible to all Minnesota public school students.

Information on Squishy Circuits: http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/apthomas/SquishyCircuits/

FIRST Robotics: http://www.mshsl.org/mshsl/index.asp

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Wow! That's Engineering! Event Recap - May 14, 2011

On May 14th, SWE-MN welcomed over 150 girls, teachers, and parents to Wow! That’s Engineering! Event at Normandale Community College. They day started off high impact at 10:00am with a dry ice welcoming show. The girls rotated through five segments covering different aspects of engineering, completing four hands on experiments and getting to take home what they made.

Geodomes – Using 65 rolled up newspaper tubes and LOTS of tape, girls built a geodesic dome while learning about compression and tension. After their hard work they were able to test the strength of their dome and then destroy them.

Bouncy Balls – Multi color balls were molded by filling the mold with beads and soaking in water. Girls learned about polymer science and finished out the session by testing the bounce of the balls they made.

Steady Hands – A popular Agilent After School Kit, for the Steady Hands experiment, girls built a simple circuit and then played a game to pass an eyelet around the wire without triggering the foul light.

Brilliant Bracelets – Girls worked through two rounds of bracelet making in this IIE favorite, first in a free-form style, and then after brainstorming industrial engineering concepts, in a streamlined focused assembly line style.

Engineering Press Conference – SWE presented the wide world of engineering to the girls in a panel setting, opening up the floor to general discussion and allowing the girls to ask many questions about engineering as a profession.

A big Thank You! goes out to our event sponsors: Goodrich, Xcel Energy, and Normandale Community College for making this event possible. And, a very special Thank You! goes out to all of our volunteers for making the event such a success!

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