Baokun ’25 shares her passion for engineering and STEM with kids from her neighborhood.
After finishing Engineering Camp at Johns Hopkins University, I headed back to Brussels where I led 2 engineering innovation workshops for kids in my local neighbourhood. It was heartwarming to see a major number of girls participate in my sessions (go women in stem!) In the first session, I detailed the fundamentals of engineering. In addition, I also introduced Tinker Cad to the kiddos, allowing them to create their own 3D designs. 3D printing is a big part of engineering, and it is an accessible and interactive way to stimulate the minds of young engineers. After the first session, I went ahead and printed all the kids’ designs out with a Creality 3D printer. Some kids had design flaws which I worked through with them so that they could learn more about the design process. In the second session, I gave the kids back their newly printed out designs and explained to them some future points for improvement. Then, I gave a short presentation on building bridges and trusses before diving into a bridge building competition with skewers and vegetables. I originally came up with this idea because at JHU, I also had to do a bridge competition with spaghetti and epoxy to see whose bridge was the strongest (my bridge held a whopping 35 kg). It was so interesting to see the kids come up with their own bridge designs. Some turned out to be really strong and carried the weight of 30+ books. Some had very unconventional designs (including a bridge that consisted of one potato slice and 50 skewers underneath). Others ended in explosions everywhere under the crushing weight of books. In the end, the winner was awarded a 3D printed engineering innovation medal. All in all, I’m so grateful to have had this opportunity to share my passion for engineering and STEM with the help of the CSGC!
