On March 2nd, 2024 Dallas SWE Hosted their Annual Design Your World STEM Conference. This year, Dallas SWE partnered with the Vickery Meadows Youth Development Foundation to share STEM insights with the surrounding community! Design Your World provides students with a day full of hands-on activities and college preparation guidance as they learn from professional engineers.
Dallas SWE is deeply grateful to the Vickery Meadow Youth Development Foundation (VMYDF) and thanks Dhara Lad, College Success Manager at VMYDF, for her stellar partnership in planning and executing this community STEM event.
Over 30 volunteers from Dallas SWE shared their passion for science and math as they engaged with students throughout the day. Students learned how classroom science and math concepts connect to real life as they built cars, flotation devices, and prosthetic limbs. Thank you to our exceptional volunteers for facilitating this learning and ensuring students left the event feeling empowered!
The day began with an engineering 101 presentation from Cyonna Holmes, Dallas SWE Vice President of Outreach, where students learned about the concepts they would explore throughout the day. Students then learned about biomedical engineering as they built mock prosthetic limbs and then tested their ability to move, bear weight and provide comfort. Product and mechanical engineering concepts were used as students built flotation devices and then tested them in tubs of water to ensure that they floated. Lastly, students built cars that could withstand various terrain challenges as they learned about mechanical and automotive engineering. Thank you to Domanique Johnson, Danielle Henry, Meena Nagappan and Robyn Broniewski for serving as activity leads.
During lunch, students had the opportunity to learn about preparing for college and also had the opportunity to partake in a Robot Demonstration from Technicbots. Thank you to Dana Emswiler, Meena Nagappan, and Cyonna Holmes for serving as panelists and to Kimberley Reid for serving as moderator for the College 101 Panel.
Students shared enthusiastic praise for the event saying:
“Can I come back next weekend and do this again?”
“I learned that engineering takes a lot of teamwork. It was fun to work with others and create things together”
Overall, DYW 2024 was a success thanks to amazing Dallas SWE Volunteers, enthusiastic students, Dallas SWE Sponsors (Qorvo, Collins Aersospace, Pepsico, HEB, Analog Devices, and Dave & Lynn Mortensen) and awesome partnership from VMYDF!
If you would like to sponsor Design Your World or partner with Dallas SWE, please reach out to dallas.swe@gmail.com.