IT-Girls-Day Entertaining 14-year olds

[skullbringer]

I am working in an IT-Company and we have girls day coming up. Basically the purpose of this supposedly is to fascinate 14-old girls for working in the IT-industry. They will be at our company for about 4 hours and we need to come up with some kind of mixture of entertainment and technology.

 

The ideas that came up were: Give each one a computer, put a switch in the middle and let them build a network and do a pong tournament in the end.

Or get a few raspberry Pi's and do some simple web server/homepage creation.

 

In the end we all agreed that this weren't the greatest of ideas, so now I'm here, asking you for your crazy, creative ideas.

 

GO!

[C0LL0SS0S]

inb4 cp jokes, as long as something moves and has LEDs they will be enjoying it, trust me I am childish ^^

[Frankie]

I would do multiple sections with simple things to keep their attention span. Fans on voltage regulators so they can turn them up and down in speed, show them PC building on a test bench, stuff like that ? 

[themaniac]

well i'm 14 but not a girl so i don't know

 

 

inb4 cp jokes, as long as something moves and has LEDs they will be enjoying it, trust me I am childish ^^

maybe for younger kids but i doubt 14 year olds would enjoy objects moving

[c3p0_]

Teach them how to make osu! skins. Is that game still popular? I don't know I'm not a teenager anymore .-. But some kids talked about that game.

[Kyuubixchidori]

we just had this happen in our school. I couldnt go because im not a girl. sexist as hell. 

 

anyway, have diffrent stations and let them pick. if they are going on this trip, they are probably intrested in technology. 

 

have a station to show them how to make a network. 

have another with a computer that has some simple mistake they can try to fix.

have one with rasbbery pis, and have them use scratch.

physical computing is always interesting, so have some way to control something in the real world. 

[C0LL0SS0S]

well i'm 14 but not a girl so i don't know

 

 

maybe for younger kids but i doubt 14 year olds would enjoy objects moving

Yeah I am 17 so yeah ^^

[Ceatra]

Let them feel the Hard Drives vibrating... 

 

(I'm 13, and a boy)

[themaniac]

Yeah I am 17 so yeah ^^

well not all of them would enjoy it tho

[SteveGrabowski]

Show them the kitchen

[pspfreak]

Let them feel the Hard Drives vibrating... 

 

(I'm 13, and a boy)

It shows

[Jagsrs28]

Get some music playing in the background (Good music, none of that call me maybe) and have some lights to correspond to the music, perhaps under the tech tables, This isnt something for the girls to play with but it will definately make everything look more "futuristic" and keep everybody happy

[xQubeZx]

Give them each one raspberry pi wich they have to create a webserver on, and then when they got the server up and running give them a well commented index.php to add some CSS too. Maybe could be fun i dont know .

 

Or you could get them to play around with different led's and stuff thats always fun. (With the arduino you can easily trigger led's in differnet ways)

[Giants mountain]

You could always use LEDs to be activated on a music note like they do in concerts. That might be quite fun they could do it through their phones as well. So you could have a contest of who can create the best light show.

[SIGSEGV]

Make and host a website running an older version of Linux without the fix for Shellshock, hack it (explaining it to make it seem easy) (delete stuff, cause havoc, let them have a go once you show them a little), that should get them interested. Also, lasers, people love lasers. I'm a 14 year old boy btw

[LAwLz]

maybe for younger kids but i doubt 14 year olds would enjoy objects moving

inb4 cp jokes

Must... resist...

 

 

 

OP I think doing something with Raspberry Pi sounds good. Sadly I can't think of anything that doesn't require prior knowledge and takes ~4 hours to do, but I am sure there is something out there.

Just remember to keep the difficulty low but not too low level. Getting stuck on a project sucks, but breezing though it won't make them curious.

[VIhul]

I think just building general interest in computers would be a good idea. Showing them cool things like Rainmeter, cool stuff you can do in Linux, etc. I once knew a guy who made a "virus" using python in 5 minutes that forced open the ODD even when you closed it and opened infinite notepad windows. Stuff like that that shows that computers aren't just Netflix machines (or whatever teenage girls do on computers they can't do on their phones).

[Admiral Naismith]

Show them the kitchen

 

Why the frak do I always laugh at kitchen jokes? I hate sexism. I hate repeated jokes. Yet I find this f*cking joke to be hilarious. What the hell?

 

 

Anyways.... When I was 14 I found the hardware in computers to be interesting. If you have any old machines that you don't mind being broken you could open the side panels and hand them a screw-driver.

[Kros]

Tell them to make you a sandwhich

[Serin]

Have a look into the 'Made with Code' thing. Maybe attach a printing service to the idea too.
They've a resources section on their website which could be helpful.

https://www.madewithcode.com/

[Albatross]

You people...if you are going to make sexist jokes or the like at least have the decency to make or use jokes that are actually funny. Using overused jokes makes you look like a Hodor and wastes my time because I wanted a good laugh. 

 

Ahem, anyways, as to answer the OP...

 

I think you should stick with the simple web creation stuff but also expand onto other things (whatever you can do to allow them to create or do stuff simply). Don't look at them like girls (no Barbie, Glee, One Direction influences), but 14 year old kids. All you really need to do is make it fun and simple so that they can experience it and want to do more complicated stuff.

[Shotgun]

I find this offensive and sexist,recently sites like code.org have been promoting female growth in IT with men being portrayed as daemons.It offends me to a certain level.Why not be Gender neutral instead.An instead of hammering such stuff in their heads why not let those actually interested take it up as a career rather than continuously hammering it in their heads stuff like "women can do it" "computer science accommodates women" i think those who are actually interested will choose it anyways irrespective of their gender.Some sites like code.org are clearly prioritizing women. 

[Albatross]

I find this offensive and sexist,recently sites like code.org have been promoting female growth in IT with men being portrayed as daemons.It offends me to a certain level.Why not be Gender neutral instead.

 

Just because code.org has issues with men doesn't mean this thread is offensive or sexist.

[Shotgun]

Just because code.org has issues with men doesn't mean this thread is offensive or sexist.

What i mean to say is,why not be gender neutral like op's company has a women it day for 14 year old's why not have both male and female 14th year old's rather than a specific gender.

and yes code.org does have a issue with men,infact many organisations now have thanks to Sheryl sandberg.

[Albatross]

What i mean to say is,why not be gender neutral like op's company has a women it day for 14 year old's why not have both male and female 14th year old's rather than a specific gender.

and yes code.org does have a issue with men,infact many organisations now have thanks to Sheryl sandberg.

 

Because they are obviously having a problem in getting women interested in IT, not men. I personally don't agree with it but sometimes something must be done to introduce women to a male dominate work force. But it isn't like OP is refusing to work with men or get 14 year old boys interested...

 

Okay? All I said was just because code.org has issues with men doesn't mean this thread is offensive or sexist.