STEM Day 2015

I had the pleasure of finding presenters for both Collin's and Reagan's classes for STEM (Science,Technology, Engineering, & Math) Day this year, and luckily I know some amazing people who agreed to go to the school prepared with awesome presentations and activities.

Our friend Julia works for Raytheon, and she brought excellent coding and engineering activities to share with Collin's class.  Somehow I did not get any pictures of Julia, but I did get some pictures of the fun activities.

The above picture shows the class during one of the coding lessons.  Collin is on the right wearing a green shirt, and his face is behind his paper.

 The students made gliders and after flying them, they had an opportunity to reengineer them to make them fly greater distances.

Auntie Cyn and Uncle George are science teachers, and they visited Reagan's class with a fun, hands-on activity to teach the children about the reason for the seasons.

Reagan was summer in the above exercise.

Both classes were excited about the activities, and the event was a huge success.  I am so very thankful for the volunteers who made the day extra special for Collin and Reagan.

STEM Expo

Collin and I recently attended the Wellesley STEM Expo.  It was a great day for the two of us.  We don't get to spend much one on one time together these days and he is very interested in all things STEM, so it was a perfect outing.  I didn't know what to expect from the event, and I was slightly nervous it would just be a glorified science fair with nothing of interest for Collin, but the event surpassed my expectations and there was a lot of fun to be had.

Here he is at the Museum of Science table trying to construct an object that would hover perfectly inside the tube (maybe a pneumatic tube, I'm not certain):

 After some trial and error, he succeeded.

 The instructor is showing him the light path of his object in the tube on the computer screen.

The infrared camera at another table was pretty cool.  Collin put his hand on his coat and then moved his hand away.  The handprint remained visible for some time after with the infrared technology.

Collin liked writing with light on glow in the dark paper.

 He used prisms to move lasers.

Here he is directing lasers with mirrors:

 There was a candy math activity that was super easy for Collin, but he was happy to eat the candy!

I was very happy with the Camp Invention table!  Collin and Reagan are both registered for a week of Camp Invention this summer, and it is a new program for us, so it was nice to see a little of what they offer.  At this table, Collin had to choose objects to place within a plastic egg that would result in the egg floating.

He accomplished the task.  The instructor was incredibly impressed with Collin because after he succeeded, he opened the egg and counted out each piece so that he would know exactly what worked.  She said he was the first student she has ever seen do that (usually they are happy to have succeeded and they go on their way), and she called him a "great scientist".

Kaleidoscope fun!

He built a bridge that could hold twenty-one books.  I'm sure it could have held more, but the idea was to learn about the fact that the Brooklyn Bridge was tested with twenty-one elephants after it was built.

Collin was very interested in the 3D printer.  It was making toys like those in the picture.

The MA state police had bomb detecting robots for the kids to try.  Here is Collin learning how to control the robot:

We had a lot of fun together that day, and we are both hoping to make it back to the expo next year.