Registration now open for Sweet Briar’s 2019 Fall Explore Engineering Weekend for High School Girls

Students work on their project during the Spring 2018 Explore Engineering Weekend.


Registration is now open for Sweet Briar College’s Fall Explore Engineering Weekend for High School Girls, Oct. 25-26. Explore Engineering is a series of immersive engineering design courses for sophomores, juniors and seniors, with weekend events in the fall, spring and summer, and a weeklong, for-credit course in the summer.

Working in teams with Sweet Briar engineering faculty and undergraduate engineering students, high school participants tackle creative and fun design projects that are perfect for beginners and advanced students alike. From brainstorming to testing and revising prototypes, students learn the design process, experience problem-solving as an engineer and make their design a reality.

This fall, Explore Engineering participants will design and build interactive mechatronic Halloween devices. The event kicks off Friday, Oct. 25, with an optional campus tour at 4 p.m., followed by dinner and introductory project work. All day Saturday is devoted to group work, with a project exhibition for family and friends at 5 p.m. Outside of class, participants will stay in one of Sweet Briar’s historic residence halls with engineering student mentors, explore campus and get a taste of life as a college student.

The total cost of attendance is $65 and includes room and board, snacks, supplies and a T-shirt. Register here by Sept. 15 for highest priority, as space is limited. Cancellations received before Oct. 1 will be refunded in full; cancellations received on or after Oct. 1 will not be refunded.

Over the past decade, more than 500 students have attended an Explore Engineering event, designing and building such things as computer-controlled smart wearables, automated musical devices, sustainable building materials, automatically refilling pet bowls, electromechanical drawing machines and optical bass guitars. The Explore series is an integral part of Sweet Briar’s Margaret Jones Wyllie ’45 Engineering Program, one of just two ABET-accredited engineering programs at a U.S. women’s college.

If you can’t make the fall event, visit sbc.edu/explore to learn more about other Explore events this academic year.

For more information about this event and the engineering program, contact Rebecca Girten at 434-381-6447 or rgirten@sbc.edu.