Holding A "Girl Friendly" Computer Aided Design Camp

Abstract

In the summer of 2002 high school aged campers attended weeklong Computer Aided Design (CAD) camps at the University of Maine. The camps combined computer instruction with challenging recreation activities requiring teamwork and interpersonal skills. One goal was to attract both girls and boys to this technically oriented camp. The camp was successful at attracting twenty-five percent girls. Other goals included supporting campers' feelings of competence and being part of the group. Camper feedback from girls and boys clearly indicated that these two goals were met through the program.

Evaluating Computer-Aided Design Software as a Barrier to Women’s Engagement in Engineering: A Focused Literature Review

“…Targeted training could also be added for women to address potential areas of improvement, such as in spatial reasoning skills via sketching or origami exercises [32], [34]. Finally, ensuring that there are women included in the training team, as members of the teaching team or via mentor roles, can help to destigmatize and normalize their involvement in CAD software and CADreliant engineering fields [66]. This is also strongly linked to the representation of women in CAD, which we build upon in the second strategic approach.…”

“…For example, the West Point Bridge Design Contest for middle-and high-school students, a national US remote bridge design contest, has shown to be a successful engineering outreach program, but has suffered from low representation of minority participants, which they've indicated a need to improve on [65]. Other programs specifically target women; for example, Horton [66] details a "Girl-Friendly" CAD camp. The camp only had 25% female participation, but it emphasized female mentors and instructors to "normalize" female participation in CAD and the technical discipline.…”

“…This may be done by focusing specifically on CAD tools or incorporating CAD tasks as an activity in a larger outreach program. By catering these programs to target women specifically [46], [66], we can promote CAD engineering work and disciplines to women, help improve their selfefficacy and belief that they can be successful with CAD work [43], and encourage them to build support networks early on. Aside from outreach programs, community activities could be implemented in a variety of settings to improve retention and the self-efficacy of women doing CAD work.…”