For the second year, the School of Science and Technology hosted the Girls Tinker Academy this summer.
Led by Dr. Natalie Hobson, Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Statistics, the Tinker Academy is a competitive two-week summer camp for sixth- to eighth-grade girls who live and go to school in Sonoma County. The program, a partnership between SST and Sonoma County’s Career Technical Education Foundation, focuses on crafting, science, technology, engineering and math. Each year, the program accepts twenty-four students to participate.
Students learn how to use the equipment available in the SSU Makerspace—soldering tools, 3D printers, sewing and embroidery machines, among many others—and employ their new skills to make a capstone project, which is then presented to parents and teachers on the final day of the camp. This year, students made miniature neighborhoods with robot inhabitants, LED-emblazoned backpacks, a wide range of reconstructed clothing items, and much more.
To learn more about this year’s program and the students’ experience, please read Alexandria Bordas’s article in The Press Democrat and Katherine Minkiewicz's article in the Cloverdale Reveille.