Intel Hosts Design Squad Day for Kids

Over 500 students from Hillsboro, Beaverton, Forest Grove and Portland middle schools attended Design Squad Day at Intel on April 12th to celebrate the launch of the Design Squad reality TV series on PBS.  The new TV series, sponsored by Intel, aims to help kids learn that designing and building things can be fun, and that they can be great at engineering.  The goal is to change outdated perceptions of engineering and attract more young people to engineering as a career.

As the sponsor of the PBS TV series, Intel held the Design Squad Day at their Jones Farm campus and invited local middle school student to become engineers for the day and meet cast members from the TV series.  Students built their own electronic dance pads, designed a hidden alarm and invented a “Pop Fly” to launch ping-pong balls.

(Ladaysha Ford, (L), 11, student at Gregory Heights Middle school and Brittany Jones, 12, student at Fernwood Middle School, work on their electronic dance pad at the Intel Design Squad Day.)

“One of the reasons we sponsored this TV series and event is because it is critical the United States stay competitive in the global marketplace,” said Morgan Anderson, Intel’s Manager of Education Relations, and member of the E3 board of directors. “And, of course, we hope the best and the brightest will come to work for Intel some day.”

Hundreds of Intel volunteers hosted students at the Jones Farm campus and helped students work on their engineering projects.  Students also saw excerpts from the Design Squad TV series in the auditorium and met members of the TV series cast including Nate Ball, who was born and raised in Oregon, and recently won a $30,000 Lemelson-MIT student prize for his life-saving inventions.

(Kaavya Mandi (L), 12, and Meghana Kalavar, (M), 12, students at Stoller Middle School, enjoy working with Srinidhi Viswanathan, 13, a student at Summa Academy North, to design and build a “Pop Fly” devise that shoots ping-pong balls during the Intel Oregon engineering event.)

Intel makes significant investments in support of Oregon schools and has a long history of encouraging student interest in math and science. They support technology training for teachers, student internships, mentors, robotics competitions, computer donations to schools, and in-school volunteerism.  In 2006, Intel Oregon donated $5.2 million to Oregon schools and community non-profit organizations.

Intel is an Oregon Education Champion, and an excellent example of how employers can play a significant role in supporting schools and student achievement through donations, in-kind services, internships, job shadows, mentorships and employee volunteerism.  For more information about becoming an Oregon Education Champion click here.

For more information about the Design Squad TV Series visit http://pbskids.org/designsquad/

back to newsletter