Kids At Work Day Ideas

[AMCRambler]

Every year my company does a kids at work day. Basically about 50-60 kids broken up into groups of 10-12, get the grand tour of our company and make stops at several departments to learn about what we all do. The kids range in age from 9-12 or there abouts. I run the Engineering Drafting department were we work with AutoCAD and assist engineers in drawing up plans for various projects for the company. We also are responsible for all facilities mapping as well. Since our company is an electric and gas utility, we've got an extensive network of infrastructure that needs to be mapped.

Last year I made the theme GIS as that is an area of technology we are working on expanding our use of for mapping and the like. I got aerial images like what you'd see on Google Earth of all the kids houses and plotted the latitude and longitude coordinates for their houses. We then plotted out 11x17 maps for them that they could each customize with cartoons and clip art in AutoCAD. After they all plotted out we laminated them and they were given out at the ceremony at the end of the day. We only get about 40 minutes with each group of kids so it's usually quite a rush for each kid to customize their maps with the help of my drafters, its about 3 kids per drafter at the current ratio.

I was thinking an energy efficiency theme possibly for this year. Focusing on having a green home to save on electric and gas bills perhaps. Trying to work that into and AutoCAD software demonstration somehow. I'd like to keep the format the same where we give them a laminated drawing or map to take home but I need to change it up from last year so it's not the same thing they saw last year.

Was hoping you guys might have some ideas for combining energy efficiency into AutoCAD? I'm just trying to brain storm a bit and your help will be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Well, you're obviously putting a lot of work into this, and I applaud you for it. However, in sticking with the idea that kids should be seen and not heard, and really, not even seen (which goes double in an office setting), I'm thinking give them the grand tour of the basement and just leave them down there with some yo-yos and a jar of peanut butter. They'll have a ball. And if that's what they think you do all day, a lot of them are going to want to go into engineering.

 

[Lamont Burns]

Goo. Paragraphs, STAT.

Based on thread title nothing sounds worse in the entire world than a "Kids at Work Day."

 

[AMCRambler]

Kids at work day isn't a bad thing. We do enjoy it as it gives us a day to just kind of have some fun. Setting it up in addition to my normal duties can be a bit aggravating.

Last year I must have spent at least 30-40 hours tracking down each kids address, downloading the correct aerial imagery tiles, plotting what I thought was the correct house and coordinate to each screenshot, sending them to all the parents and correcting the ones where the geocoding from google maps was wrong. I gotta think of something with less up front work for myself as I just don't have the time to put into it this year. I still need to make it enjoyable for the kids though.