Danielle Boyer Makes STEAM Fun with Apps for Kids
Danielle Boyer is an incredible young award-winning Indigenous (Ojibwe) robotics inventor, author, environmental activist, and tireless advocate for underserved youth who has been teaching kids since she was ten years old.
We first met Danielle Boyer when she was 17 years old. You may know her as one of the Main Stage speakers at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2020, as someone featured in past SOLIDWORKS Educational blogs, or from her appearance in our Born to Design podcast. She is the inventor of Every Kid Gets a Robot (EKGAR), a robot that costs less than $20 and goes to kids for free, and is an engineering educator who is powered by the SOLIDWORKS Apps for Kids.
Danielle and The STEAM Connection
Now at age 20, Danielle creates innovative learning solutions utilizing robots that she invents and gives to kids for free to make technical education accessible. Armed with a desire to make the technical space an equitable one, she created The STEAM Connection, a nonprofit that has helped her reach hundreds of thousands of children worldwide with life-changing education. She has been named one of PEOPLE Magazine’s Girls Changing the World and a L’Oréal Paris Woman of Worth and currently mentors 35 youth robotics teams. And, last but not least, she was just recently announced as a winner of the Verizon and Clinton Global Initiative Foundation Social Innovation Challenge for her latest invention that intersects biodegradability and robotics. What an Impressive path!
As an educator and young designer, she is always looking for innovative resources for her classroom. She wants her students to get their hands on active design educational resources. She tried Apps for Kids when it came out 5 years ago and was very satisfied since it totally corresponded to her objective, enabling her students to design things, to hold their own designs in their hands, and to solve problems with their inventions.
“SOLIDWORKS Apps for Kids is the reason why I am able to do the work that I do” said Danielle. “I see my students go from taking a passive role in design to becoming innovators eager to invent solutions for their communities. They have always wanted to make change, but now they have the tool for it. Apps for Kids takes the fear out of engineering and allows them to create great things now. From teaching prosthetics lessons to teach my students about mindful design to learning about how Every Kid Gets a Robot works, Apps for Kids empowers my classroom. And it isn’t just a great resource for an educator but also for my nonprofit, The STEAM Connection. I’ve gotten my team members and instructors to use Apps for Kids to blend seamlessly with their own careers and as their own roles as STEAM ambassadors and educators. Whether they are studying microbiology, robotic muscles, or circuit design, Apps for Kids allows them to communicate their knowledge and passions with our youth. We are all youth teaching youth and I think that is a beautiful thing.”
Danielle and her mentee Vinaya
Speaking of impactful projects, Danielle’s mentee and Hands-On Techie Talks podcast co-host, Vinaya Gunasekar first got her start with the Apps for Kids. Since Vinaya Gunasekar was a young child, she has worked to bring science and technology educational resources to other kids like her. She got started by founding the science wing at her elementary school through her initiative, Project R.O.O.T. Now at age 13, Vinaya is an environmental activist and STEAM change maker who is passionate about recycling and using technology and robotics to benefit our Earth in innovative ways. She is also a programmer on her all-girls FIRST robotics team.
Vinaya first was introduced to CAD through a program that Danielle taught a couple of years ago called the Engineering Design Club. Now, she is teaching others, is an accomplished public speaker at events like 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021, and is inventing robots to help others.
“I am designing a robot right now named Auto Oscar. It’s a robot that cleans up recyclables off of school floors and is an active advocacy tool. I designed it in SOLIDWORKS and part of it was designed in Apps for Kids” said Vinaya. “I first got involved in CAD through Engineering Design Club by Danielle. I got to make a robot and learn about robotics design and the design process in general. I designed a phone case that made it harder to just slap off the alarm in the morning. It opened my eyes to what was possible and how much I could do with CAD. My favorite feature of Apps for Kids is the ability to download files as an STL file! I can print everything I make”.
She will go to high-school in the fall and, for her, the possibilities are limitless, especially when it comes to helping save our Earth. As she said in a talk for the Friends of San Antonio Natural Areas “I believe that innovative education using STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) will empower the next generation of thinkers and doers to accelerate progress for climate action. We need every single unique mind contributing, but the necessary educational movement hasn’t been made to access every child and help them realize their true potential and impact and what they can really achieve”. And, for sure, she can’t wait to see what happens next.
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