Beauty and the Bolt: Brilliant is Beautiful Fundraiser

Support Beauty and the Bolt
We are a weekly YouTube series dedicated to teaching young people of all genders the basics of making, engineering, and more. We want to empower anyone to take the first steps towards making a difference through science and technology. Join us as we teach everything from the basics of the woodshop to building Virtual Reality applications - all in a way that anyone can jump right into and understand.

Mission
Beauty and the Bolt’s goal is to share engineering and the maker movement in a way that makes sense and is engaging to parts of the population that aren’t currently being reached out to. Who said an engineer has to look a certain way? Act a certain way? Dress a certain way? By framing the channel around Belle, one of the most subtly badass princesses, our goal is to subliminally tell people that femininity and engineering are not mutually exclusive.
Women and minorities are vastly underrepresented in the STEM workforce. Beauty and the Bolt aims to make learning engineering easy, cheap, and accessible for anyone - especially teens and young adults - while also encouraging creativity and individuality.

See us in the DAILY! - http://thedaily.case.edu/brilliant-beautiful-students-create-video-series-offer-new-view-engineering...


What We're Doing
In early 2016, Xyla approached Andrew with the concern that the tutorials being put out by think[box], the Case Western Reserve University makerspace, were putting off as many users as they were helping. Together they began working on a video series of tutorials meant to engage and entertain viewers of any background.
Inspired by Belle’s quirky brilliance and courageous perseverance, each of our projects is an opportunity for anyone to learn and create. From short how-to videos and tutorials to explainations of popular technology and even math, we want to make sure that anyone interested in STEM has the resources to learn.
We do our best to make each topic we cover approachable, fun, and interesting - without breaking the bank.


Meet Us
Maker tutorials are almost always taught by older dudes - creating a disconnect with the most important younger audiences. Our team's different: we're made up of young engineers and artists working to teach the things we wished we learned in school. We're approachable, energetic, and curious - making us the perfect team for our viewers to learn alongside:

- Xyla Foxlin (Producer, Host)
Xyla strives to be the woman she wish she had to look up to growing up: passionate and invested in what she does technically, but also maintaining femininity and external interests like fashion and art. She prides herself in being the one in a dress at robotic design reviews, and the one blur of pink in the machine shop. Xyla is a TA at tbx and a little obsessed with changing the way we educate our youth especially in regards to engineering and making.

- Andrew Dupuis (Producer, Videographer)
Andrew is a firm believer in making engineering fun. He spends most of his time building random projects he found on the internet or making holographic manatees for a few laughs. Andrew thinks that shop class needs to make a comeback, and that everyone should be able to express themselves through making. As a Biomedical Engineer, he hopes to finally build something truly useful, even if that means trading in his Legos.