The Girl Scouts Lakes and Pines hosted the Miss Robotic event last week at the Big Lake Lions park to invite more local girls to join Girl Scouts and showcase some of Girl Scouts’ hands-on, STEM programming. It was a free event welcoming girls ages K through 12 to participate.

 

At Girl Scouts, they’re committed to increasing girls’ involvement in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and ensuring that every girl has opportunities to explore and build potential career paths in these important fields. 

 

About 50 girls attended-some were just trying the program out for the first time and others were existing Girl Scouts. Becky Reynolds, director of recruitment and development, began by welcoming everyone. She invited the girls to open by reciting the Girl Scout promise, then the kids were divided into groups based on age. Each table had a different STEM activity for the girls to try with friends and parents.

 

Lacey Bock, mother to nine-year-old BreAnn, explained that she homeschools her daughter and was looking for ways BreAnn could socialize more with others.

“She’s such a social butterfly and had been asking all year to come to Girl Scouts, so we signed up online and when I received the email for this event, I knew we had to try it,” said Lacey. 

 

Meanwhile, Sarah Marnier, a Girl Scouts leader and mother, already has daughters in Girl Scouts. Sophie, who is a Daisy, and April, who is a Brownie, love being part of all the activities.

 

“I was a Girl Scout for many years and really enjoyed it. I decided to get my daughters involved because I wanted them to have leadership skills. It also empowers them and helps them develop their friendships,” shared Sarah. 

 

There were three STEM stations set-up for Girl Scouts to explore:

 

• One station challenged girls to think like an engineer. With only a picture and pile of parts to guide them, Girl Scouts used reasoning skills, trial & error, and teamwork to complete design challenges. Each challenge taught girls about a different engineering concept such as: center of mass, compression, and mechanical motion.

 

• Another station used beading to teach Girl Scouts about how a computer’s binary code works to display everything you see on a computer. Girls were asked to pick a word they feel best represents them and use corresponding colors beads to represent the binary code a computer would need to see to know what to display on the screen. This is a great way for girls to visualize how long computer codes become because a word as simple as CAT would require a string of 23 coding characters!

 

• The final station was the robotics table. Girl Scouts were given a short introduction to robotics and basic programming by using color-sensitive robots. Girls were asked to create paths for their robot to follow while coding them to change speeds, make directional decisions, and even some cool moves like zig-zag and spin!

 

This program along with other Girl Scout Leadership Pathways is made possible by the generous support of the United Way of Sherburne County. Girl Scouts is available for all girls in grades K-12. For more information about getting involved, please contact Girl Scouts Lakes and Pines at 320-252-2952 or email customercare@girlscoutslp.org.