Worlds UNBound (new window) is a STEM outreach program that runs out of the Faculty of Engineering (new window) at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) (new window) and reaches over 13,000 youth across the province annually through in-school clubs, workshops, camps, and special events. With help from funding from the Clubs That Care (new window) initiative of Neil Squire’s Makers Making Change (new window) program, the team at Worlds UNBound have been engaging their summer camp participants in assistive device builds, allowing students to get hands-on STEM learning opportunities all while making a difference in the lives of people with disabilities in their community.

“Hands-on experience is essential for students. You can talk to them all day long and it won’t get the point across the same way that getting their hands on a soldering iron and seeing that solder smoke and making that connection in the circuit. No words or pictures will top that,” says Clubs That Care youth leader Skye (pictured above), a recent biomedical and electrical engineering graduate at UNB. Her job as the Engineering Outreach Coordinator for the Faculty of Engineering includes running Worlds UNBound.

“When you put them in a safe space, give them their goggles and say, ‘Follow these instructions to change a life,’ there’s no better way to do that.”

As a Clubs That Care youth leader, Skye was able to use her micro-grant to purchase a 3D printer, soldering tools, and event materials for use with the Worlds UNBound camps.

So far, Worlds UNBound has hosted two build events led by Skye’s main facilitator, Anshul (pictured below), an electrical engineering student at UNB. The first saw 23 campers in grades five to seven build 10 Playback Switches (new window). Recently, 24 participants in the Girls UNBound camp — a camp for female-identifying and non-binary students in grades seven to nine — built 12 switches, with Fredericton-Oromocto MP David Myles and Jennifer Flanagan, CEO of Actua (new window), Worlds UNBound’s parent organization, in attendance.

The devices will be donated to a speech pathology clinic in Saint John, New Brunswick, with plans to send some devices to occupational therapists in the Fredericton area as well.

Camp participants have loved the builds.

“Every week, we do ‘what was my favorite activity,’ and we have them write it down on a bubble and then we have it in an overflowing beaker in the back of our camp space, and soldering has been up at the top every single time we run the program,” Skye explains. “Great feedback. Lots of ‘can we do this again,’ or ‘I’m going to ask my dad for a soldering iron for Christmas,’ stuff like that.”

“They thought it was a really special experience, and it opened some eyes as to ‘maybe I want to be an engineer someday,’ which is, of course, the point of our programming.”

The Worlds UNBound team plans on hosting a couple more builds with their summer camps, hoping to adapt some toys as well. They are also looking to the future.

“We wouldn’t have been able to do this program without the support from the Clubs That Care grant, and seeing how well it’s starting with our camp season, we’d love to bring it forward in the school year with our university students,” Skye shares.

With the opportunity to support STEM education for youth — the Worlds UNBound instructors are largely university and high school students themselves — while making a difference in the community, it’s a perfect fit between Worlds UNBound and Makers Making Change.

“Worlds UNBound does a lot of its programming free of charge or provides different ways to remove barriers for different folks. STEM education is the point of the program, and connecting with community members is what we do every single day,” Skye says. “This gives us access and means to make more lives better and connect that with our kids who love STEM.”

“Honestly, there’s no better program for us to partner with.”

This post originally appeared on the Makers Making Change (new window) website.