Igniting Inspiration: Fall 2013
During the fall break of 2013, we had our first Igniting Inspiration where 28 third, fourth, and fifth grade students came to our school for a week of fun and STEM enrichment. We organized different projects for the students to do that related to what they were learning in class; projects dealt with kinetic and potential energy, building a robot and programming it and more. On the last day of the camp, there was an open house where all the students brought their parents in to show them what they were working on all week. This STEM Camp was a big success, participant showed a great amount of enthusiasm and problem solving while working on projects with their groups to get them working.
Curriculum
Artec Cars
Students explored the Artec kit robots. The first day was spent building the robot and programming it using the buttons on the circuit board. The third grade students needed extra time to work with the parts and only had time to construct the robot. The next three days were spent programming the robot to complete through different mazes, increasing with difficulty.
Papercoasters
Students created roller coasters from cardstock. The roller coasters were designed to show how the energy changed forms as the marble moved throughout the roller coaster. The papercoaster sessions were not as scheduled as stringently as the Artec sessions. Sudents were taught how to put the paper coasters together and how to make the coaster parts. If they had difficulty designing the coaster, either instructors would help them draw out possible designs on paper.
Squishy Circuits
Students were introduced to concepts revolving around circuits and electricity through the use of conductive dough as a medium of connecting a battery and LED together. They were taught how parallel and series circuits work.
Hoverdiscs
The hoverdisk activity allowed students to build hovercrafts out of CDs, balloons, and other recyclable materials. The objective was to build a hovercraft and then race them launch them to see who got the farthest. This session was an impromptu lesson since students had picked up on the squishy circuits quickly.
Write It Do It
A basic rendition of the Science Olympiad event, students wrote instructions for each other on how to build a certain structure made out of toothpicks and different colored Play-Doh.
Documentation