A couple weeks ago, Kyoko went to Poly Prep to participate in Women’s Innovation Symposium in Engineering (WISE) .  The symposium was a great opportunity for girls in middle to high school interested in becoming engineers.  The day included a keynote speaker, who talked about what engineers do, a breakout workshop session, and concluded with a presentation from the girls about what they learned.  Kristin and Kyoko designed a workshop to teach girls about the strength of materials by running some experiments to measure the mechanical properties of different rubber specimens .  The girls had a great time playing with spring gauges and calipers, and got first hand experience on how important it is to run careful experiments!  Check out some pictures here.

It was a fun event and a great opportunity to not only to reach out to young aspiring lady engineers, but also to network with other ladies in engineering.  We hope to be participating again next year!

Kyoko’s poster on tensile/swelling tests cervical tissue and Michael’s poster about permeability measurements of human cervical tissue were well-trafficked and appreciated by conference attendees. We are having a great time here making friends and advocating for the importance of biomechanics in the study of preterm birth.

Kyoko and Kristin will be participating in the Women’s Innovation Symposium in Engineering at Poly Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn this weekend.  They will be conducting a Strength of Materials workshop and demo. This workshop will explore how the basic concepts of mechanical engineering can be used as a foundation to study biomechanics and structural design.