Girls get S.M.A.R.T. at Ulster BOCES (cont.)

Predictably, quite a few answer honestly, "I was forced." "Mom insisted." About half, though, have an answer that tells a different story: "I was here last year, so I didn't want to miss it."

Girls Get S.M.A.R.T. — Summer Manufacturing and Robotics Training — is free to the participants, funded by the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association (FMA) Foundation and actor John Ratzenberger's Nuts, Bolts and Thingamajigs Foundation (NBTF). The two organizations fund camps across the country, believing that boosting the interest of young people in manufacturing careers will combat this country's shortage of skilled labor in this sector and revive industrial growth.

Last year, says coordinator Evelyn Torres, the participants built a robot and fashioned rings for themselves from raw metal, using design software. This year's focus could hardly be more timely: alternative energy. The students, who come from the seventh-through 10th-grade classes all over Ulster County, will be building model houses, programming a robotic solar car and studying the chemical energy created by combining acid tablets and water.

The week-long camp will feature three field trips — one to Clinical Prosthetics in Lake Katrine, another to Sandvik Coromant manufacturing company, and not least, to the famed Orange County Choppers. Before they're through, the girls will know more about solar, wind and hydro power. Torres says every year is a new adventure.

"One year they built a boat and christened it with a bottle of milk," she recalls.

After finding out a little about everyone's life goals — many don't know, although there are several aspiring chefs, a veterinarian, and a future designer of roller coasters — and re-stressing safety precautions on the shop floor, Harris breaks the class into smaller groups and hands out the model house kits. The initial shyness is dissolving as grins break out and the volume of chatter rises. By midweek, says Torres, they will be all over Harris and the other instructors with a million questions, wanting to know more.

Torres, who's been coordinating these camps for eight years, says the makeup of the class — about fifty percent repeat customers and a couple of younger siblings of alumni — is typical.

"Once they get into it, they have a blast," she says. "I think it's especially important for young women to see real live role models who excel in science and technology. This is our effort to get them excited about the possibilities."

A single-gender classroom, she says, works best, especially with this age group and subject matter.

"This type of hands-on technology is traditionally the boys' turf," Torres said. "My experience is that without any chance of feeling intimidated or embarrassed, the girls open up and become very productive … It's a great feeling, confidence, and knowing how to handle power tools or a welding torch can produce a lot of it."

By Anne Pynburn, Ulster County Press, Stone Ridge, N.Y., Aug. 11, 2008