Learning & Leading Through Technology

Student Promotes DIY with Super-Awesome Videos

STUDENT

F rom a cardboard periscope to robots programmed to paint, seventh grader Sylvia Todd likes to make things. And she wants to inspire other kids—particularly girls who sometimes shy away from STEM careers—to get passionate about science, technology, engineering, and math.

“Some girls in my class think
[STEM] is only for boys or only for
adults,” Sylvia said. “They say, ‘I can’t
do that. I have to do something else
or other types of occupations.’ But
you can do what you want to do. You
can be what you want to be. I really
like inspiring other people to do what
they want to do and what they want to
have fun with.”
Her vehicle for spreading that in-
spiration is her website, Sylvia’s Super-
Awesome Maker Show (sylviashow.
com). This is where you can find
videos of Sylvia demonstrating how to
make everything from crafty decoup-
age pieces to advanced science proj-
ects from premade kits.

Sylvia first started making things when she was 8 after attending a local maker fair, an event that promotes the do-it-yourself mindset in arts, crafts, engineering, and science projects. Sylvia was so entranced by the event that her father, James, suggested she make something and share it on You Tube as a summer project.

In an improvised studio, Sylvia donned a white lab coat and demonstrated how to construct a Drawdio, a kit that transforms a pencil into a musical instrument. Her dad, himself a tinkerer and web designer, videorecorded her and uploaded the video onto the internet, and Sylvia’s Super-Awesome Maker Show was born.

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That first video garnered more than

63,000 views. A dozen and a half episodes later, her website is still drawing new subscribers numbering in the thousands.

With production now down to a science, Sylvia and her dad usually complete an entire project over a weekend during the school year. The episodes are simple, informative, and, most of all, fun. And the projects are open source, so viewers can recreate them at home.

Incorporating puppetry and themed music, Sylvia often demonstrates how to make things from premade kits, such as Arduinos, single-board micro-controllers used in the construction of robots and LED lights.

“I want to make sure that kids are aware of that sort of stuff so if they want to learn more about it or how to do something with it, they have the opportunities to do it,” Sylvia said.

The past year has been busy for Sylvia.

After winning a silver medal at the 2013

Robogames, an international robotics
competition, she was invited to dem-
onstrate her winning WaterColorBot
to President Obama at the third annual
science fair at the White House. She has
given a TED talk and made a guest ap-
pearance on Katie Couric’s talk show.

Although she’s only 12, she has big plans for her future. She wants to someday attend MIT and study aerospace engineering. “I love stars,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to be some sort of aerospace engineer, and if that doesn’t happen, I still have some other interests. I like drawing. I like writing.

There’s just tons of other things that I
like, but I could change my mind.”
For now, Sylvia says she is content
making things and sharing with other
kids, as well as being an advocate for the
kind of hands-on learning that the mak-
er movement promotes. “Mostly school
is just lectures and lectures with books
and homework,” Sylvia said, “but what I
want to happen is that schools will start
having more do-it-yourself projects and
hands-on experiences that let you learn
a lot more because it is actually fun.”