STEM Initiative Camp 2022
Title: STEM Initiative Camp 2022
Held at the Chinese Church of Christ in Hayward, this year’s STEM Initiative Camp ran for six weeks with around 16 students ranging from 6-8th grade. Our camp featured three sessions, each with an engineering-focused STEM 1 interactive activity and a technology-focused STEM 2 activity.
Each day started with outdoor activity time at Cannery Park. Students led by their teacher played common sports and team games such as Capture the Flag, football, soccer, Infection Tag, Freeze Tag, and many others.
Session 1:
For STEM 1, students engineered building better towers and devices to measure time. Activities included building water timers from a limited amount of material such as tape, foam paper, and funnels.
During STEM 2, the students used Circuit Scribe, pens filled with conductive ink, to draw links between a battery and different modules such as an LED light, buzzer, and blinker.
Session 2:
During STEM 1, we engineered ice cream. Adjusting the recipe each day, the students experimented with different recipes, flavors, colors, and insulation materials to make the perfect ice cream.
During STEM 2 the students connected a circuit and decorated their own drone, using the Circuit Scribe Pen. They built the drone using parts and controlled it with Bluetooth from the Circuit Drone app.
Session 3:
In STEM 1, the students created their own “dirty water” with tea bags, clay, soap, string, etc. Then, they used different filters, such as cheesecloth, paper, limestone, and sand to filter the water into clean, drinking.
We wrapped up STEM 2 by coding Sphero, spherical robots to light up, move in a mapped position, or respond to contact. They tested their code through an obstacle course or by playing the games that they coded.
We also took educational field trips to ASDRP, the Exploratorium in San Francisco, and the Tech Museum in San Jose. The students were able to engage in an interactive chemistry lab at the Tech museum and enjoy hands-on activities at the Exploratorium!
Guests speakers like Stanford Ph.D. candidate Edward Njoo and researcher Robert spoke about subjects such as cryptology, and chemistry.
Overall, the camp provided a great opportunity for students to meet new people from other schools, as well as provide interesting activities for them to participate in and introduce the thought process behind science and engineering. We look forward to next year's STEM Initiative camp!