Manufacturing summit for female students hosted at Sacred Heart University

FAIRFIELD — If the precision machining shop at Platt Tech in Milford was light on female students on Tuesday, it’s because nearly half of them were representing at a Girls & Manufacturing Summit at Sacred Heart University.

It was a program designed to convince more girls that math, science and making stuff might be for them. What better ambassadors could there be than high school juniors like Monet Francis of Trumbull or Hailee Harriman of Milford whose eyes light up talking about the tools they’ve created with their own hands?

The Platt Tech contingent spent the morning at one of several exhibition booths, explaining the joy of applying what they learn on the spot. Their audience were middle and high school students like Maite Coyota, of Blackham School in Bridgeport.

Science, Coyota admitted, is one of the few subjects that catches her interest.

“With other classes, it’s hard to get my brain on,” Coyota said. “This is really interesting and cool. I can see myself as an engineer.”

That’s music to Alyce Stiles’s ears. She is associate director of experimental STEM education at the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology, Inc.

This is CCAT’s sixth year putting on the girls-only summit. This year, it partnered with Sacred Heart, which introduced engineering in 2017. Of the 100 middle and high school participants, many came from Bridgeport’s Classical Studies, Blackham, Waltersville, High Horizons, Claytor and Winthrop schools, as well as Fairchild Wheeler and Bassick high schools. Suffield High School students also attended.

“The idea is to spark interest and inspire them,” said Stiles. “Women are under represented and we need more of them.”

According to a 2017 Deloitte study of women in manufacturing, only 29 percent of manufacturing jobs were held by women.

Selena Morgan, an executive director of elementary education for Bridgeport Public Schools, said the summit was about exposure.

“I hope they learn there are other opportunities out there, things they don’t know about,” Morgan said.

At the West Campus, where the summit was held, there is a 11,000-square-foot makerspace lab students got to explore.

Tolga Kaya, director of the engineering program, said the lab — flush with 3D printers, cutters, a Printed Circuit Board Machine and drone research equipment — is still evolving, with manufacturing equipment arriving daily.

“We want our engineering students to learn how to use the equipment,” Kaya said, adding he wants girls to see that this is not their father’s manufacturing shop.

“It’s clean,” he said. “ A lot of girls think manufacturing is dirty and greasy. Not true.”

In another workshop, students worked in teams to assemble K’Nex models under a time pressure and a last minute change in design.

“This happens every single day in manufacturing,” called out Brandon Lynn, who ran the workshop.

Down the hall in a classroom turned into an ice cream stick factory, the task was to cut sticks to size based on customer orders.

After the exercise, Calvin Brown, a member of the CCAT Team, asked what students found most challenging. One student said the cutting tools.

“Good equipment is important,” Brown said. “So is good communication, teamwork and precision.”

Traveling with the groups of girls were female engineers like Jonna Gerken, of Pratt &Whitney of East Hartford.

When she was in high school, Gerken said she wanted to be an architect.

“I found I did not have the knack for it,” she said. Industrial engineering was more to her liking.

Her advice to the students: Even if you do get your hands dirty, it’s OK.

Claire Gregoire, 27, of the German-based TRUMPF in Farmington, said she became an engineer because it was in her blood. Her father, grandfather and brother are all engineers.

Her mother warned her it was not a very feminine career, Gregoire recalled, but she picked it over a career in medicine anyway.

“I liked math and I liked physics,” she said. “Eventually my mom came around.”

Link to full article: https://www.ctinsider.com/news/ctpost/article/Manufacturing-summit-for-female-students-hosted-14554468.php#photo-18483532