Imagine getting a set of Strawbees and being asked to come up with a new Boolean Girl Summer Camp using the straws and connectors. For many, that idea would be daunting. For instructors Abbey Lennox and Anastasia (Ana) Kotakis, it was an exciting challenge.

Abbey, who has been working with Boolean Girl for four years, started developing curriculum for Camps as part of her senior experience project with Ana, and the two have been helping with it since. They were the perfect choice when Boolean Girl’s Co-Founder, Brian Moran, discovered Strawbees and decided to integrate these new building tools into Summer Camp. Brian suggested building a city but left the rest to Ana and Abbey to develop.

“I was excited with the idea of coming up with something new!” said Abbey. “Brian gave us free will to come up with the curriculum, so we were able to be creative.”

Boolean Girl participates in Build Day with the Hirshorn Museum each year, teaching kids how to use LED lights to bring their paper structures to life. Abbey was inspired by those Build Day projects and decided to integrate micro:bits into the Strawbees Camp. With the micro:bits, campers could not only build a city out of Strawbees, but power it and make it come to life with solar panels, wind turbines, and other moving parts. From an engineering perspective campers could experiment with mechanical, electrical, civil, and systems engineering as well as coding.

The concept of a Strawbees city expanded when Abbey had the idea to bring a Mayor into the mix. The Mayor (a surprise guest) would come towards the end of Camp to inspect the city. From there, the plan for the week started to come together.

Campers started the week learning about Strawbees and micro:bits. Then because the campers would all need to work together on the city, Abbey and Ana added in a team exercise, using only toothpicks and marshmallows to build bridges. 

On Tuesday, the instructors told them about their final group project, building a city with Strawbees, and kicked it off with urban planning lessons. They also received a call from the Mayor (an AI-generated voice call) telling them about the back story of the city and the inspection on Thursday. This kept the campers on-track and excited for their special guest!

Wednesday was micro:bit day, where they learned how to program motors, lights, and buzzers in order to add moving parts and sounds to the city.

On Thursday, the Mayor–surprise guest instructor Juliet from Scratch camp–came by to inspect. Mayor Juliet gave the class ideas for improvements and encouraged them to keep going for Friday. 

Friday was the Ribbon Cutting ceremony, where families and friends joined the campers and instructors to celebrate the opening of Micro City!

Teamwork was key throughout the week, as a group project this extensive required excellent communication. They developed “task forces” where campers broke up into small groups based on what they were working on. A “lead”--instructor or assistant–worked with the small groups, and the instructors had “staff meetings” during breaks to talk about how to switch up groups or change roles. Changes were made mid-week to make sure campers were working on what they wanted to and ensure everyone was on the same page. 

“I’ve taught many micro:bit classes, and I am always inspired by the students’ creativity,” said Abbey. “I knew they’d come up with things I couldn’t even imagine, so I was excited to see how creative they could be when building a city.”

Abbey, who grew up going to summer camps and couldn’t wait to become an instructor, loves that she gets to combine her favorite things (programming, engineering, building) while teaching with Boolean Girl. 

“Boolean Girl is a great organization that promotes women in STEM, and I love to see how much potential there is in these classrooms,” said Abbey. “It’s great that maybe they will go into coding or engineering because of the class they took, the class I built. It’s such a fun work environment every day from playing cards or building with micro:bit or Strawbees.”

We call our instructors “rockstars” for a reason. They make our Camps and Clubhouses extra special while also functioning as mentors for their young students. While our STEM programs are geared towards younger girls and students, we also provide jobs for high school and college-age women in STEM, like Ana and Abbey. Here they have the opportunity to develop new skills like teaching and curriculum development.