The Invention Factory.

The Invention Factory is a nontraditional youth-based, after-school program in Honolulu that teaches information technology and mechanics to teenagers through interactive, hands-on projects that improve human computer interaction for individuals with disabilities. The content area students study is electronics with embedded microcomputers, and the targeted population is students in grades 8 through 12. All teacher and student participation is voluntary. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] One objective of the program is to stimulate interest in science and engineering careers among students currently underrepresented in those fields: women, native Hawaiians, students with disabilities, and at-risk students. Another objective is for students to learn enough electronics, mechanics, mathematics, and computer programming to conduct needs analysis, design, fabrication, and evaluation of devices that meet the needs of people who are disabled. The program intends to demonstrate that students who create technology-based solutions that impact people have increased motivation to pursue careers in engineering and science. The results are not in yet because the students are halfway through their three-year program. An idea for a program The idea for the Invention Factory program began with a single two-hour career-week workshop for high school girls. The organizers asked Sandy Gabrielli, a female engineer, to share her experiences in assistive technology (AT) engineering with the girls. Instead of just talking about engineering, she provided a short engineering experience by teaching students some elementary electrical theory and hands-on skills so that they could properly build a large switch and modify electronic toys to make them usable by children with motor disabilities. The students, none of whom had used hand tools or soldering irons before, glowed with satisfaction when they successfully tested their switch and toy. This practical activity provided a perfect introduction for a short discussion about the engineering knowledge involved in the creation of more advanced human interfaces to information technologies. At the end of the workshop several students said they wanted to become engineers and all of them wanted to sign up for another workshop. Later student and teacher interviews revealed several different driving forces at work: The students were fascinated by the technologies, learned new information, mastered new skills, related to the intended user and recognized the need, understood how the proposed solution matched the need, and experienced a great sense of achievement when their small project was successful. These activities provided a way to get young people interested in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Word of this workshop spread quickly among teachers and within a few weeks there were requests from schools all around the island of Oahu for similar workshops to be held in schools. So from a small start, the Invention Factory grew. Community partners This program consists of quite a few collaborating partners. Invention Factory staff are University of Hawaii employees from the colleges of education and engineering, including faculty, instructors, technicians, graduate students, and undergraduate students. A dozen undergraduates volunteer their time to help with the project. The Native Hawaiian Science and Engineering Mentoring program has provided the project with workshop instructional aides. Participating middle and high school teachers collaborate, providing school and curricular connections, supervision, and space. Women in Technology, a nonprofit organization that encourages girls to enter the STEM fields, facilitates recruitment of participating schools. Gender equity objectives are addressed by attempting to have an equal number of boys and girls in each workshop, and mentoring opportunities are ensured for girls who participate in the program. …