Several of the women associated with the Fashioning Circuits
blog recently took their skills to the Design Your World
Conference to teach young girls aged 10-12 how science can be
fun. Specifically, with the coordination and leadership of Amy
Pickup, we conducted a workshop about the LilyPad Arduino. The
computers were set up and ready to go when the 15 girls came in
and we were ready to teach! Amy lead a great discussion on the
history of the LilyPad Arduino, then showed a video with some
example projects, and went over all of the elements and add-ons
for the LilyPad. Then it was on to the brainstorming session.
Each of the volunteers took a group of 2-3 girls and helped them
come up with ideas and ways to use the LilyPad to create new
clothing designs or functionality. It was really interesting to
see what their young minds came up with. Two themes that I
picked up were dealing with fear of the dark, like a glowing
teddy bear that turns off after a set amount of time, and
creating fun gimmicks to wear at sc