Camp introduces girls to manufacturing and helps find that ‘maker gene’

An attendee at the GADgET Girls Camp at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Ill., applies some finishing touches to a part on a lathe.

Noor Raham has only been alive for a decade, but she's always known she wants to be an engineer.

“I’ve been into engineering ever since I was younger,” the 10-year-old said.

That might sound funny coming from someone who hasn’t even entered sixth grade, but Rahman said it as earnestly as possible. Afterall, her grandfather was a civil engineer, and she hopes to follow in his footsteps.

“I want to design and make things,” added Rahman, as she stood dwarfed next to massive CNC machines in the metal fabrication lab of the College of DuPage (COD) Technical Education Center in Glen Ellyn, Ill.

So her parents signed her up for the GADgET (Girls Adventuring in Design, Engineering, and Technology) Girls Camp at COD, a two-week workshop that’s part of the Nuts, Bolts, & Thingamajigs (NBT) summer camp series and aims to introduce girls to design and manufacturing processes. NBT is the foundation of Elgin-based Fabricators and Manufacturers Association, Intl.

Rahman was one of about a dozen sixth- to eighth-grade girls to attend the GADgET Girls Camp. Over the span of two weeks, they received a crash course learning SolidWorks; working with metal, wood, and plastics; and safely operating various tools and machines, such as band saws, welders, and 3D printers.

It’s a pretty broad overview of some elements of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career paths, but the whole point, said camp instructor James Tumavich, is “to spark that maker gene. It doesn’t matter what they’re making, as long as they are making something.”

Even though COD launched its version of the camp in 2019, this summer was the first year COD ran GADgET Girls without the in-person guidance of program founder Antigone Sharris. The engineering technology coordinator at Triton College first started the girls-focused camp back in 2010 when it was clear to her that boys were the overwhelming majority attending youth STEM camps.

But Tumavich believes COD has been long overdue in hosting an NBT camp—especially considering all the resources the college has to offer. It boasts an enrollment of nearly 25,000 and is the second largest provider of undergraduate programs in all of Illinois.

“When I noticed all the other colleges running camps, I thought to myself, ‘What are we doing wrong?’” said Tumavich, who’s the COD manufacturing technology chair.

Campers received a crash course learning SolidWorks CAD.

So Tumavich reached out Sharris about taking steps to replicate her program and help get more girls interested in manufacturing and STEM fields.

“She really helped us fire it up,” Tumavich said. “Her sole purpose was just to launch other GADgET Girls summer camps.”

Of all projects the girls worked on throughout the two weeks, the metalworking workshop turned out to be the camp favorite. They customized either a dragonfly or eagle design, transferred those CAD files over to a water jet cutting machine to be cut, and then welded the pieces together.

For 11-year-old Nina Suerth, she said she was used to woodworking in her father’s shop, but it was the first time she had ever worked with metal. And now she wants to buy a soldering iron.

“It’s really cool making stuff out of metal. I was able to weld together the feet, wings, and stuff. It was cool seeing the metal melt and dry immediately. And then when you’re done, you see it and think, ‘Wow, I made that,’” Suerth said.

To drive home the metalworking processes, the girls made a visit to metalworking machine manufacturer MC Machinery Systems in Elk Grove, Ill., where they designed a metal candy dish and saw the fabrication process playout. While in the facility, they finalized the design in SolidWorks CAD, watched the metal parts get cut on a large laser cutting machine, and then observed the individual parts formed into a tray on a press brake.

Camp instructor Donna Mikrut said because of the welding project, the girls gained a true appreciation for seeing the process play out in a large metal fabrication shop.

“They already had that experience, so they got to build on that experience,” Mikrut said. “They started realizing, ‘Oh, I’ve made things out of metal and now I can make bigger things.’ They are amazed that this was available.”

Editor's Note: NBT is accepting applications for 2023 summer manufacturing camp grants through Dec. 1, 2022. Host schools receive a variety of support from NBT including up to $2,500 in funding. Bring a camp to your region next season! Visit nbtfoundation.org/camps for more information.

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