When three Cal State Long Beach professors saw a low percentage of women in the field of engineering, they also saw an opportunity to bring mothers and daughters together to build what is typically seen as a boy’s project – robots.
Thus began “My Daughter is an Engineer,” a three-day overnight program that took place Friday through Sunday and allowed 19 mother-daughter teams to learn about robotics and employ their new knowledge in creating and building their own robots while staying in the CSULB dorms. The program also included a field trip to the Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey.
Three engineering faculty from CSULB – Lily Gossage, Beir Lu and Panadda Maryong – teamed up to create the program for young girls who are interested in engineering as a future career path.
According to Gossage, only 18 percent of engineering majors at CSULB are women, and in the national workforce, only 10 percent of engineering professionals are female.
The event was funded by a $10,000 grant from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
According to Lu, there were two components to the workshop: a lecture and an activity.
“One [was] the introduction of robotics, and another one is the introduction of controls,” Lu said. “The mothers really get involved during the activities.”
After the workshop was over, the concepts the teams learned were applied through a robot competition, during which they built robots and programmed them to compete through obstacle avoidance, Marayong said.
“It’s really good to see the parents work with the girls, coming up with a plan and strategy for the competition,” Marayong said.
Each of the participants had to submit an application through their elementary school counselors. The counselors then recommended the students to the College of Engineering based upon their grades and performance.
The three co-directors of “My Daughter is an Engineer” said they decided to include parents in this outreach program because parents play a vital role in their child’s success.
“Parents have a big role in shaping their kids’ futures,” Marayong said. “I think to influence [the students] to go into technical career paths, and also give them preparation in mathematics and science, parents have a big role in trying to keep them on top of these things.”
The CSULB professors had to think of ways to make the competition interesting for both the parents and the fifth-grade girls.
“I think the way that we create the activities in the program is that we believe that it’s in the appropriate level that would interest both kids and adults,” Lu said. “So, since the funding comes from IEEE, a lot of our activities involve robotics and control technology.”
Many girls said that building the robots was the most interesting experience, but they also agreed that dorm life was fun.
“My favorite part of the experience is staying in the room with my mom and building the robots and having the competition of robots and seeing who won,” Jhoana Perez, a student from Edison Elementary, said. “We built robots that can sense things. We put a little disc in them, and we can control it to go left and right.”
Many of the girls said they were interested in math and science because they liked to challenge themselves.
The mothers also gained knowledge about their daughters and engineering careers by participating in the program.
Mireya Garay, Perez’s mother, said that she came to the program because she wants to be able to support her daughter’s dreams.
“I enjoyed the experience because she [Perez] is shy, she likes math, but she is shy,” Garay said. “And here, it’s like she opened up. She liked it a lot, she can see how it is to be a future engineer.”
Garay said she liked how the program showed young girls the possibilities of entering careers that are usually framed around boys instead.
“I thought that this was something that was more for men,” Garay said. “I believed that this was something more difficult for women, but that changed a lot because I see my daughter can do it.”
Emily Galindo, a student from Patrick Henry Elementary School in Long Beach, and her mom won first place in the robotic competition.
“It was like a little robot cart, and we had to make it go around an obstacle,” Galindo said. “They gave a kit with all the different parts we just had to assemble it.”
Griselda Salinas, a student from Roosevelt Elementary in Long Beach, said that she loved being with her mom because this experience gave them quality time to spend together doing something she loves.
The experience also gave the girls an insight to being a student at CSULB.
“I want to go to Cal State Long Beach because I’ve already been here, I know the place,” Salinas said. “I was here for two nights, so I know what it’s like.”