The March 3rd hackathon event hosted by the Kent State Student Chapter for American Computing Machinery-Women and the Research Center for Education Technology (RCET) provided a day full of STEAM opportunities for 30 girls from 11 different middle and high schools in Summit, Portage & Tuscarawas counties.
The day kicked off with Alicia Robinson, Executive Director and Founder of Limitless Ambition, and Xyla Foxlin, CEO and Founder of Parihug and the YouTube page Beauty and the Bolt, speaking about what inspires them as young women and giving advice to the group about achieving success. Girls spent the day participating in break-out sessions that included hands-on tutorials for programming Arduino microcontrollers, 3D design using Tinkercad and Sketchfab, and web page design. After learning how to use the tools, girls developed their own creations using their newly learned skills. The event was designed to inspire young women to be creators of technological innovations - not just consumers of technology - who use technology as a creative tool to build solutions for problems or challenges people face in their daily lives.