First Virtual Engineer’s Week 2021
Each year L.A.Y.M.F. is proud to be a driving force for honoring engineers around the world and in this case, providing full screen access to younger generations who want to learn more about what it is to be an engineer. Our own L.A.Y.M.F. day leads are achieved young engineers that hosted each day to be unique, significant and filled with big surprises on their first virtual E-week. Starting with Joan Hsu, the Elementary School Day lead, who kicked off the week with over 150 students and provided energetic activities from Kahoot quizzes to hands-on engineering activities. Students were able to win e-gift prizes with the help from the day sponsors L.A. Department of Water and Power, CDM Smith, HNTB and Jacobs.
Day two was filled with further excitement as lead Ani Sarkissian welcomed over 100 students to join in on the zoom call featuring inspiring speakers Evelyn Cortez-Davis from B.C.E.E. and Christine Rice from CDM Smith. The speakers shared their educational experiences starting from their middle school days to their college years which led to a hands-on activity where the students participated in designing a spaghetti tower and an infiltration gallery. Towards the end of the zoom session, the essay contest winners were announced and with the help of our day sponsor CDM Smith, Middle School Day was successful!
The thrills continued for High School Day with lead Claris Rivera inviting more than 200 high school students into the virtual world of engineering shared with our spectacular panel. The students were able to meet and hear from representatives from Apple, Tesla and Walt Disney Imagineering. The meeting began with Matthew Noyes, from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who shared the latest news on the MARS 2020 Perseverance Rover Landing. With the help of our day sponsor HNTB, we congratulated our essay contest winners and witnessed these bright and creative minds build paper structures in their breakout rooms.
The week ascended to heights unthinkable with day lead Meghrie Demirdjian and 120 young ladies on Girl Day greeting Alyssa Carson, an astronaut in training! The girls learned more about space exploration and various careers in the STEM fields shared by guest speakers Malika Grayson, Lorena Soriano, Tiffany Janzen and Diana Ma. We are grateful to our day lead sponsor Jacobs for extending a wide spectrum of opportunities for these young women to learn and meet other pioneering women in STEM fields. We celebrated the event congratulating the essay contest winners as they claimed their amazing gifts.
Last but definitely not least was our Girl Scout Day event led by Nikki Zuleta with a whopping 140 honorable girl scouts! The fabulous troops gathered to hear from one of their own, Kayla Truong from the L.A. Bureau of Engineering and how she became an engineer today. Imagination and fun followed with the ladies participating in the design of air cars and virtual games.
A huge thank you to all of our sponsors and speakers for making this year’s first virtual Engineer’s Week more powerful and embracing connections beyond our local communities. The shared experiences and inspiring presence of all who joined in everyday will be an inspiration for years to come! Thank you to all who volunteered and participated to make this possible for students not only in Los Angeles, not only across the country but virtually to students beyond our borders!