The Lego Booth: "Science for Girls" Fair

A few weeks ago, I received an email about the Science for Girls chapter hosting a science fair, and, though I was coordinating CommSci at the same time, I thought, "Oh, what's one more activity?" I decided to hold a booth at the event too and expose children/tweens to the "wonders of engineering" -- and the best way I thought I could do that was by hitting close to home: Legos.

I have yet to meet a person who does not know about/like playing with Legos. From toddlers, we grow up with building blocks, puzzle toys or the actual Legos themselves, and having just finished the Gear activity, I thought it would be a good activity for a booth. I sent out my idea to several students I knew and few responded back to me. So with a group of four other students (two of which had no experience with Lego robotics), I planned out the activity; did a few lessons in how to build Lego cars, motion modules and PicoCricket programming; prepped for the weekend event; and then spread the information to children at the science fair. The booth was actually a hit and kids stayed around for a long-time, making and racing their cars, forming their own motion modules, teaching their parents how to do the activities, and just having fun.  (Shout-out to Ms. Kat Roche who taught a 6-yr old girl so much about car-making that she could tell me everything from gear ratio to the effects of friction and car weight to motor speed and torque.)

Other Wellesley students as well as parents came up to us to express how happy they were that we did this booth and to ask where they could buy these pieces for family projects -- and one adult even invited us to the Wellesley HS Science Expo in April. We weren't expecting the reaction we received, but we were nonetheless pleased. To say that we were excited would be a bit of an understatement....


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