2016 Women Empowerment Conference

Priya, Kavya and Maanasa presented a workshop "Row, Row, Row your Bot: Making Space for Women in STEM" at the 2016 Wecon Conference. Participants programmed NXT Lego Mindstorm robots to go through an obstacle course. The course included obstacles which represented the different types of barriers that women face in higher education and the work force such as bullying based on gender, job stereotypes, unequal pay, and maternity leave. First participants learned the basic methods of programming, and sat through a short presentation on various laws/skill sets they can use to break these barriers. Then they worked on a challenge: to program a robot to cross a river filled with obstacles. They created a successful program while learning about the barriers women face and the tools that can be used to overcome them.