Girlsday 2016 @ A-Lab
Girlsday is an initiative of VHTO (Women in Higher Technical Education), the national expertise agency for women in STEM. This event takes place every year in several major cities throughout the Netherlands and was created to introduce young girls to STEM professions.
During this "girlsday," numerous companies open their doors to girls between the ages of 10 and 15. The girls can participate in various activities and interesting workshops. In this way they get to know all kinds of technical professions and additional work.
Getting started with interaction design
We gave girls from the second class of the Hyperion Lyceum in Amsterdam the opportunity to take a look into our world. We showed the girls what precedes the development of a website or app and how you, as an interaction designer, lay the foundation for a digital product. What is the client's goal? Who is the target audience? What does the user want to be able to do with the product and where and when will she use it? All questions the girls tackled in groups to come up with a concept. Then they were allowed to determine the 'look and feel' themselves and worked at a high pace towards the idea for their product. In the end they were allowed to pitch this idea briefly but powerfully and they did this very well.
Speaking in 'Robot language'
Spacebabies, another company based at A-Lab, gave a workshop called "Robot Language. During this workshop, the girls learned to think about computer language without using a computer. Which symbol goes with which action? Half of the students wrote a 'robot language' and the other half had to use it to make connections between symbols and the desired actions. They would then have to be able to perform these using plastic cups. The result was an interactive lesson in which students learned the basics of programming.