Robotics Outreach for Girls
The Outreach Team is currently collaborating with the STEM team to invite schools which we recruit most of our CS students from. During the school visits, we introduce the CS programme and run a robot-based challenge where pupils work in groups, competing against each other.
The Outreach Team is also involved in events organised by the STEM team.
- Masterclasses: These events are for boys, girls, and mixed schools, where we run a 2-hour robotics-related programme.
- Summer School Activities in Collaboration with STEM Center: The school lasts six days, and we have 4 hours for the CS program and robotics-based challenge.
- Microtopia Summer School for Girls: Nadine Aburumman, in collaboration with Prof Juling Shih (National Central University (Taiwan)), ran the Microtopia CS Summer School for Girls, which was funded by the CS department. We welcomed 90 girls to our campus from 3 local schools: Eden Girls’ School, The Green School for Girls, and UTC Heathrow.
BeBrunel outreach kits
The Outreach team developed BeBrunel outreach kits, funded by the department’s summer internship scheme. The kits can be found on Github, in addition to other materials that have been created throughout this year.
CS Masterclass for KS3 (Year 9)
In March 2023, Athena Swan Outreach Team (Dr Nadine Aburumman) ran a CS Masterclass for year 9 pupils. 35 girls attended, out of 77, and they were very excited and engaged throughout the class.
The Masterclass contained two workshops. The first workshop was titled “CodeME with micro: bit”, and covered 3 programming concepts [looping, selection, and sequencing], and 3 small activities that focused on physical computing featuring things that buzz, or light up. The second workshop titled “CodeME with Maqueen Robot”, covered 3 activities focused on physical computing featuring moving and tracing, and the get me out of the maze challenge.
Taster Day for Haringey Sixth Form College
In June 2023, the Athena Swan (AS) outreach team ran a Taster Day for Haringey Sixth Form College (Year 12 pupils), which took place at Brunel and included two workshops (Cyber Security: Beat the Hacker and Robotics programming workshops). There were 6 girls out of 19.
The Dream Big Programme for Eden Girls School
In June 2023, the Athena Swan outreach team delivered The Dream Big Programme for Eden Girls School in Slough. The programme consists of 4.5 hours of robotics sessions delivered for Year 7 on Monday and Year 8 on Tuesday at the school premises.
The number attended was 100 pupils for Year 7 on Monday and 120 pupils for Year 8 on Tuesday. The sessions took place in the school gym, where the school supplied laptops, and we supplied the robots.
Inspire Summer Schools
In July 2023, the Athena Swan (AS) outreach team ran workshops within the Inspire Summer Schools (Year 11 pupils). We ran one 2,30 hours with a mixed gender cohort and a 2-hour workshop for girls only. 32 girls from black and minority ethnic backgrounds attended the workshops.
Microtopia Summer School
In July 2024, 90 girls coming from 3 different schools visited Microtopia Summer school. They learned to program with micro:bits to work on interdisciplinary and collaborative projects – all inspired by real-world problems linked to UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The summer school aimed to promote CS as an exciting career and a driving force for good.
Eden Girl's School
External Collaborations
Code First Girls University Centres
Code First Girls has become the largest provider of free coding courses for women in the UK, having delivered over £60 million worth of free technology education and teaching three times as many women to code as the entire UK university undergraduate system! Our mission is to reduce the gender diversity gap in tech globally by giving more women the opportunity to learn new skills and pursue great careers in tech.
Brunel University’s Virtual Global Opportunities & Careers Fair includes this workshop if you are interested in registering for it: VIRTUAL Global Opportunities & Careers Fair (International Week) (brunel.ac.uk)
