Engineer This!
Several new Girl Scouts got a taste of mechanical engineering during a program series offered by GSCCC’s Community Troop team. The group is meeting weekly for a period of six weeks at the Camelot Community Recreation Center in Chesapeake, and activities are led by Cheyenne Wikkerink, a GSCCC Community Troop Specialist and Girl Scout alum who spent twelve years in Girl Scouting as a youth.
The floor of the meeting room was covered in building material; paper and plastic products being recycled and molded into something new with the help of young imaginations. Their task was to build a working model of a roller coaster. The group will be doing more activities in the coming weeks to earn the Girl Scout Mechanical Engineering Badge, such as building a balloon car, creating a board game and making a catapult. The goal of the series is to give girls experience working as a team through brainstorming and hands-on activities during the design phase. The process includes testing out ideas and seeing what works, what doesn’t work (and why it doesn’t work), and to learn about and practice the science behind the fun.
Learning by doing is a central component of the Girl Scouts. Girls proudly earn badges, including those participating in Community Troop series. There are over 140 STEM-related badges to earn, covering topics as diverse as cybersecurity, robotics, and math in nature.
“We know not every girl will grow up to be an engineer,” Cheyenne said. “But it is important to spark their interest in STEM and other activities outside of the classroom. Our goal is to help them imagine themselves in different roles as they grow up and to try new things.”
Thank you to the City of Chesapeake for helping with the funds to support this effort. GSCCC’s Community Troop Programs aim to serve all girls regardless of their circumstances, bringing programming directly to the places girls already are.
Activity: Make a roller coaster!
Things you will need:
- Small wooden or lightweight toy car
- Marbles
- Paper plates
- Scissors
- Cardboard (if you have a spare box)
- Tape
- Toilet paper or paper towel rolls
Use a worksheet to start planning your roller coaster. (You may find the full meeting plans and activity instructions in the Volunteer Toolkit through your MyGS login.) After you have completed your plan, start building! Use toilet paper or paper towel rolls to add height to various parts of the roller coaster and tape the paper plate track onto them. You may also want to use rolls to make tunnels connecting the tracks.
