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Girls Connect at Thayer School

Mar 04, 2011

CONTACT: Catharine Lamm
603/646-3943

Girls Connect

Dartmouth's F.I.R.S.T. Lego League (FLL) mentors are the hosts of two separate all-day kids events at Thayer School. The first, called Girls Connect, took place on Saturday, April 5th. The event was designed to get more girls involved in the FLL program—a robotics competition for elementary- and middle-school students.

The event demonstrated how easy and fun building and programming robots actually is and gave Dartmouth FLL mentors the opportunity to inspire girls who are not yet involved to join their local teams.

"It was a fantastic day thanks to a great group of Dartmouth volunteers," said Philip Wagner, one of the event's organizers. "The girls had a great time and accomplished a lot over the course of the day."

Since many girls are interested in FLL but can be more hesitant to join, the event provided a fun and low pressure atmosphere to show them what the program is all about.

Kids Connect

The second event, called Kids Connect, will take place on Saturday, April 26th for students in the nearby Upper Valley area. At this fun day-long workshop, small groups of students (with help from Dartmouth volunteers) will work together to build and program their own robots made from Legos.

Kids Connect is also designed to generate interest in FLL and aims to spread the word about the program not only to local schools, but also to the Dartmouth community.

Both are student-run events, organized by Schweitzer Fellows Philip Wagner and Caitlin Johnson. For their Schweitzer Fellowship project, they will be supporting the Lego League robotics program in the Upper Valley over the course of the next year, including workshops like Kids Connect and a student mentoring program.

For more information, contact Lego@Dartmouth.EDU.

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