Bot girls: High schoolers explore engineering at Sweet Briar camp

“Go, little guy! Go, little guy!” Lexie Kiely, a rising high school senior from Lynchburg, pleaded as her “artbot” — a robot that paints — quivered on its canvas of white paper.

The stingray-shaped robot, made from a lime green cloth placemat purchased at a local Goodwill store, wasn’t doing exactly what engineering design campers Kiely and her partner, Olivia Daniszewski of Forest, had planned.

A fan-shaped brush on the stingray’s nose was supposed to spread paint, and paint-coated marbles in the creature’s eyes were designed to pop out of their holders and roll around, making interesting designs.

Holey pingpong balls injected with watered-down paint would trail behind on strings like squid’s tentacles, while crayons affixed to the stingray’s belly would make colorful marks as it motored around the artbot “stadium.”

Kiely and Daniszewski were showing off their invention on July 24 on the last day of Sweet Briar College’s first “Explore Engineering Design Summer Course,” a weeklong camp aimed at high school girls who are interested in engineering.

It was a good idea that, for some reason or another, just wasn’t working. “Artistic design sometimes gets in the way,” Daniszewski, said as she tugged the stingray’s left “wing” out from beneath one of the robot’s wheels.

Assistant professor of engineering Scott Pierce said, “One of the most important lessons they’ve learned is nothing works the first time.”

Kiely countered with a laugh, “Nothing works if people watch!”

During the week, 13 high schoolers in teams of two or three designed and built artbots and “e-garments,” the latter described by Pierce as computerized clothing that does something creative. The girls, most of whom hailed from Virginia, were assisted by Sweet Briar’s engineering faculty and four SBC students, three of them engineering majors.

One of the e-garments was a backpack made from a hollowed out stuffed bear. When a motion detector in the bear’s nose sensed movement, it would wave its arms and make a siren noise, and its eyes would glow a spooky red.

“It’s kind of demonic,” Nicole Waugh, a rising junior from Henrico, said while testing the design in the engineering lab.

Naturally, she and teammate Brittany Gater of Midlothian, named it “Cuddles.”

When it came time to demonstrate what Cuddles could do, however, he wasn’t fully cooperating. The white Teddy bear waved his arms up and down like a shipwreck survivor flagging an aircraft but his LED eyes failed to light.

“Just the motion you saw is very hard (to make happen),” engineering program director Hank Yochum said before adding, “It has an audience sensor.”

Some artbots and e-garments worked better than others. For instance, the LEDs wired to some e-garments barely flickered, while other items were declared nearly ready for retail.

Kiely and Daniszewski’s “Shake Awake” headband promised to vibrate when a sleepy student nodded off in class.

When Kiely put on the burgundy headband and set off its tilt sensor, it vibrated just like it was supposed to do.

“It just worked! It just worked!” Daniszewski said.

Said Pierce, dryly, “And we’ll be buying them for all of our students.”

Kate Fanta, of Remington, and her partner, Shanzay Farzan, of East Brunswick, N.J., designed the “Smarty Pants,” shorts that would get shorter the hotter the wearer got. A temperature sensor and computer located in the back pocket of the plaid Bermudas activated a pulley system that raised the pants legs.

“These are ready for Target,” Yochum said.

The weeklong engineering course was funded by a National Science Foundation grant aimed at recruiting and retaining female engineers. Those who attended earned one college credit hour. So far, unlike some of the inventions, the grant seems to be working.

“Whether or not they come (to Sweet Briar), they sure do seem to be getting excited about engineering,” Pierce said.