Fourty girls from 4 beautiful countries – Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland -, all junior high students, will spend a week of summer at V4 STEM Camp for girls at the premises of Makerspace.hu in Nagykovacsi, near Budapest, with the leadership of interdisciplinary experts.
The event will provide useful skills and development training that are crucial for building a successful career, and will also aim to establish a network among girls as well as strengthen V4 identity. The participants will build the “city of the future”: a self-sufficient, zero emission smart city in which different cultures can live and work together, by using a mix of digital fabrication methods like 3D printers, laser cutters, microcontrollers or robots, and traditional tools like woodworking, vinyl cutting, sewing. The city will be fully automated and populated by the representatives of the V4 countries and their neighbours.
While building the city itself is a scientific and technological challenge which needs engineering skills and coordinated teamwork, the main goal of the camp is to make the participants understand that cities are primarily social structures, in which people and culture are the most important aspects of our shared living. Our smart city of the future will address those challenges we (the participants) face in their life and we will ask them to find solutions, and not only write about them but to act, to create.
STEM education is always about seeking problems and finding viable solutions – and the city is a perfect structure in which these creative solutions can be shown. The workshop does not need any prior skills in fabrication, we will supply the participants with all the skills and tools for the building.
