Girl Scout Day - Adafruit Programmable Jewelry

Our SWE chapter held our annual Girl Scout Day for middle school aged girl scouts interested in engineering.  The girls worked on programmable, LED bracelets and necklaces made by the company Adafruit. The jewelry was made by soldering wires to led boards and then programming the memory chips by writing code that could change the patters and colors of the lights.

The Hampshire Gazette covered the events of the day, and the article can be read on the UMass College of Engineering website here.

A mechanical engineering junior Daniel helped lead the day, starting by giving the girl scouts an overview of engineering and a synopsis of what the day would include.

The girls and SWE members had to figure out how their jewelry was to be assembled and how much wire they would need.

A girl scout was cutting and stripping wire for the first time.

Tiffany, a mechanical engineering junior, helped one of the girls write the code for her piece of jewelry.

Kelly, an electrical engineering senior, helps the girls use the soldering gun to solder the wires to their jewelry. 

Emily, an industrial engineering junior, helps model some of the finished products! These two girl scouts made necklaces.

First Meeting

We had a GREAT turnout to kick off SWE for 2015.  We had over 50 members, both old and new, in attendance.

As always, we had food at the event which is always a hit.  We held elections for next semester, and were thrilled with the eagerness of all the girls to be on the board. Many of our positions are now co-held, which goes to show how involved our members want to be.

Some E-board members getting creative and writing a life size SWE with the bodies!