Future Smith Engineers' "TOYTech" Project Kicks Off
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| Audience/Grade: | College Freshman-Graduate |
| Discipline(s): |
Community-based Service Learning Design General Engineering, Engineering Science |
| Special Topic(s): | |
| Learning Resource Type: |
Reference - Article/Document |
| Media Type: |
Unknown |
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| Description: | A key principle in engineering is not only designing things well but understanding the needs of the people who will use them. Students in Smith College's new engineering program -- the first engineering program at a women's college -- are absorbing this principle from the outset, thanks to a project called "TOYTech" and a "catalyst" known as the Institute for Women in Technology (IWT). For its inaugural project, Smith's development center will tackle a perennial challenge: the development of technology-based toys that appeal to girls and boys alike. Known as TOYTech (for "Teaching Our Youth Technology"), the project kicks off at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 23, in Theater 14 of the college's Mendenhall Center for the Performing Arts. Some 80 participants - including 20 students from the Chestnut Middle School in Springfield, Mass., 20 sixth-graders from the Smith College Campus School, eight students from the Children's Museum in Holyoke, Mass., and 20 Smith College engineering students - will spend the day in an intensive, highly directed brainstorming session led by IWT Executive Director Sara Hart. Using a methodology known as Thinking EnvironmentTM, an innovative model of interaction used by leading organizations and based on the premise that everything we do depends for its quality on the thinking we do first, participants will start by considering the toys they wished they had had as young children. To foster the best quality of thinking, emphasis will be placed throughout the day on giving every participant opportunities to speak without interruption and for the group as a whole to reflect substantively on all ideas generated. Everyone present will be required to participate, and elements of hierarchy - age, seniority, position, gender - will be eliminated as much as possible. Following the workshop, Smith students in "Engineering 100" will, over the course of the semester, take forward the group's ideas, developing concepts, models and prototypes and testing them at various points along the way with the younger students and teachers. |
| Rating: | No Rating |
| Related Resources | |
| References: |
Engineering Outreach Activities at Smith College Smith College Graduates the First American All-Woman Engineering Class! |
| Usage Tip | |
| Related ABET Criteria: |
(c) Design a system, component, or process (h) Understand global, economic, environmental, and societal context |
| Use of Resource: |
Service learning with a focus on technology toys that are gender neutral ToyTech is one of the Virtual Development Centers (VDCs) of the Anita Borg Institute of Women and Technology, a Silicon Valley-based organization founded by computer scientist Anita Borg and dedicated to engaging women in the creation of new technology. The VDC is a collaborative, nationwide network of development centers where design solutions and prototypes are developed based on input from people from diverse backgrounds and people whose input has not typically been sought in product development. For more information on the VDC program see: http://www.needs.org/needs/view.jhtml?id=CA830131-A151-4523-ADFF-03E541E756E0 |
| Version Info | |
| Publication Date: | April 2005 |
| Platform/Format: |
WWW |
| Cost: |
Free |
| Download URL: | http://www.smith.edu/newsoffice/releases/00-056.html |
| Copyright and Use Restrictions: |
Most of these resources are free for nonprofit educational purposes. |
| Metadata: |
IEEE LOM Record |
| Collection: |
NEEDS
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