DigiKey Encourages Growth in STEM During National Engineers Week 2018

In the fast-growing world of Technology and Innovation, many things are happening to help inspire the next group of young engineers.

The week of February 19th was the National Society of Professional Engineers’ annual Engineers Week, and as part of the celebration, DigiKey spent the week with local students to drive awareness of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and help Inspire Wonder (the theme of the week). Here is a little sneak peek into the week’s exciting activities.

Lincoln High School Learns to Code

The high school technology students took a field trip to the DigiKey headquarters where each student was given a Pimoroni Micro:bit prototyping kit and the opportunity to learn how to use block coding to program their units. The students enjoyed using the Bluetooth feature to send messages to their classmates as well as playing around with the other programming capabilities.

DigiKey Lights Franklin Middle School’s Imagination

Students at the middle school were visited by DigiKey employees over the course of two days. In each session, the students watched a presentation that explained some of the new and exciting advancements in technology and learned about circuitry while making a breadboard-based night light.

Challenger Elementary Meets @RobotMakerGirl

Allie Weber, a very talented and bright 12-year-old student/inventor/engineer from South Dakota, put on two presentations for the 2-5^th graders where she showed off a few of her inventions and talked about her involvement in engineering.

To learn more about Allie and her inventions, you can follow her on:
Twitter: @RobotMakerGirl
YouTube: Tech-nic-Allie Speaking

DigiKey Hosts a Girls Night Out!

In celebration of DiscoverE’s Introduce a Girl to Engineering day, DigiKey invited girls in the 6-12^th grades to their headquarters for an evening of knowledge, experience, and some fun! The girls ate pizza, watched the “Dream Big” film about women in engineering, networked with real-life engineers (including Allie), and were able to interact with various hands-on projects. The girls went home with a Micro:bit and Neopixel Ring coaster, along with some inspiration to pursue careers in engineering.

As technology and innovation move more and more into the hands of our younger generations, DigiKey hopes to “Inspire Wonder” in students and build enthusiasm in our future engineers.

Stay tuned to see what DigiKey does next year in our 5^th year of celebrating National Engineers Week!