Arduino is for Girls

Actually, Arduino is for everyone. ChichTech is for girls who want to learn Arduino.

I got invited to help with ChickTech's inaugural Portland Arduino workshop. For $50, you got your own Arduino, breadboard, and parts. You also got two full evenings of help getting started. Oh, and yeah, food!

My experience with the Corvallis Library Teen Maker program was invaluable in helping plan for this event. I picked my favorite tutorials from the SparkFun manual, and was able to put together parts kits for ~$35/ea, including the Arduino and breadboard!

Other than helping with curriculum, my Arduino expertise wasn't really needed. I spent most of my time helping with soldering. Like the soft-circuits workshop, we were using lead-free solder, which is a bit tricky, especially for beginners. That didn't stop us getting a lot of Maker robots with RGB eyes made.

It was an amazing event. Everyone was engaged and full of great ideas for projects. The best part was that they got to take everything home, so there is no reason for them not to make something awesome on their own!