Led by Chris Beimborn, UWM EnQuest coordinator and STEM outreach manager, the College of Engineering & Applied Science was represented March 6 at the Discover World’s annual Girls & STEM event, attended by 1,492 participants.
The interactive event, held in partnership with Northwestern Mutual and featuring 20 educational, corporate and non-profit participants, aimed to inspire girls to envision themselves as engineers, designers, scientists, innovators, entrepreneurs, and the leaders of the future. During the event, one young girl told a Fox6 news reporter, “It’s not all about men. Girls can do the same things as men.”
Volunteering from the college were PECS (Preparing Engineering and Computer Scientists) scholars—who led visitors in a circuit craft—and members of the UWM Biomedical Engineering Society, who demonstrated a 3D printer and showed participants a prosthetic hand, a stent and 3D printed rotating gears shaped like a heart. The 2021 EnQuest summer camp project was on display alongside informational slides created by the campers.
“Those little learning experiences and being able to come to events like this and be like, ‘Oh, that’s someone like me,’ or, ‘I can do that,’ it’s really empowering,” Kelly McElvain, a UWM biomedical engineering and physics major, told Fox6 news.