6th- and 7th-Grade Girls Will Explore Engineering Studies at RIT

A hands-on workshop, “Park & Ride: Amusement Park Ride Design—An Engineering Program for Middle School Girls,” will introduce 30 sixth- and seventh-grade girls to engineering, Dec. 10-12 at Rochester Institute of Technology.

The two-and-a-half-day workshop, hosted for the second time by RIT's Women In Engineering Center in the Kate Gleason College of Engineering and the university's student section of the Society of Women Engineers, teaches participants about amusement park design by examining multi-disciplinary engineering aspects of various types of rides.

Presented for the first time last April, the program offers an early look into the field of engineering and how engineering is used in the real world. Organizers aim to spark the girls' interest in engineering studies through fun, interactive robotic projects using LEGO kits.

“Last spring's program received great reviews from the attendees and their parents,” says Elizabeth DeBartolo, RIT assistant professor of mechanical engineering and an organizer of the event. “The girls were challenged but learned a lot and had fun.”

The workshop will also feature a speaker from Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla. Melanie Smith, an RIT alumnus and labor forecasting and planning manager for Magic Kingdom, will speak about her career path in engineering, 2:30-3 p.m. Dec. 11, in RIT's Xerox Auditorium in the James E. Gleason Building.

In addition, parents of the participants are invited to a panel discussion on Dec. 12 focusing on engineering careers for women.

For more information about the program, visit http://www.rit.edu/~630www/advising/park.htm.

Note: RIT's Kate Gleason College of Engineering is among the nation's top-ranked engineering colleges. The college offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in applied statistics, engineering science, and computer, electrical, industrial and systems, mechanical, and microelectronic engineering and a doctoral degree in microsystems engineering. RIT was the first university to offer undergraduate degrees in microelectronic and software engineering.

Founded in 1829, RIT enrolls 15,300 students in more than 340 undergraduate and graduate programs. RIT has one of the nation's oldest and largest cooperative education programs. The engineering college is named for Kate Gleason, the first female bank president in the United States and daughter of William Gleason, founder of what became Rochester-based Gleason Corp. Kate Gleason was America's first female engineering student and the first woman elected a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.