STEM and Community Outreach Remains a Key Focus During National Engineers Week 2019

In the fast-growing world of technology and innovation, many things are happening to help inspire the next group of young engineers.

The week of February 18th was the National Society of Professional Engineers’ annual Engineers Week, and in keeping with the spirit of the event, DigiKey spent the week with local students to further their interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and demonstrate how Engineers: Invent Amazing (the theme of the week).

This year’s activities would not have been possible without the help of our amazing outreach sponsors: 3M, Cirrus Logic, Fluke, Hakko, Littelfuse, LulzBot, Pomona, Pulse Electronics, VersaSense, and Weller.

Here is a quick recap outlining the week’s exciting activities.

Lincoln High School Tangles with CircuitPython

The high school technology students left school grounds and headed to the DigiKey headquarters for a programming session using CircuitPython, a coding language that is quickly becoming one of the most popular in the industry. The students were each given an Adafruit Gemma M0 to program during the session and take home at the end.

Franklin Middle School Senses Shakes, Rattles, and Rolls

Students at the middle school were visited by DigiKey technicians during their science classes. In each session, the students heard about some of the new and exciting advancements in technology and learned about breadboard-based circuitry while building a vibration sensor project, featuring the Adafruit Fast Vibration Sensor Switch.

Challenger Elementary Catches Up with @RobotMakerGirl

Allie Weber, a very talented and bright 13-year-old student/inventor/engineer from South Dakota, was awesome enough to come back to Thief River Falls for a 2^nd year and put on two presentations for the 2-5^th graders. This year, she showed off a few more of her inventions and talked about her recent involvement in the new Discovery Channel series Mythbusters Jr.

To learn more about Allie, her inventions, and her myth-busting, you can follow her on:
Twitter: @RobotMakerGirl
YouTube: Tech-nic-Allie Speaking

DigiKey Hosts Another Girls Night Out!

In celebration of DiscoverE’s Introduce a Girl to Engineering day, DigiKey invited girls in the 6-12^th grades back to their headquarters for another exciting evening of knowledge, experience, and fun projects! The girls ate pizza, networked with real-life engineers (including Allie), and were able to take part in numerous hands-on projects. The girls soldered their very own light-up circuit boards, programmed a Micro:bit, watched LulzBot’s Mini 2 3D printer in action, and we’re hoping left with some inspiration to pursue careers in engineering!

As technology and innovation move more and more into the hands of our younger generations, DigiKey hopes to demonstrate to students how Engineers: Invent Amazing and build enthusiasm in our future engineers.

Come back this same time next year to see what DigiKey does to make our celebration of National Engineers Week bigger and better!