Simon O'Connor/Stuff Dr Michelle Dickinson at a Nanogirl performance. The programme is an expansion of a 50-student pilot run earlier in the year, which gave Dickinson insight into some barriers to STEM for kids in low socio-economic areas. Eleven-year-old Finau Fileta from Auckland’s Pt England school is one of the students who took part. She said she liked it because all the experiments used objects she already had at home, like kitchen roll tubes, serving spoons and bowls. “You didn’t have to buy expensive stuff.” She said she felt more confident with science after doing lots of experiments at home.