Middle schoolers imagine a future in engineering

Imagination is a one-week camp, so we have a residential portion and a day portion. And the students get to engage and learn about different careers in STEM and different things they can do with engineering and technology. We like to serve underrepresented populations to expose these students to different engineering and STEM opportunities that they otherwise wouldn't necessarily learn or see in school, in hopes that they can pursue a degree or higher education in STEM. Some of the activities that our students have been engaged in this week, are civil engineering challenges where they will be having to use the concepts of center of gravity and different forces to use construction paper to build the tallest structure without using tape or any other materials. With the cybersecurity challenge, they're using coding, using Java to do a capture the flag challenge. And also throughout the week, they work on an engineering design project where they make a LED color organ, so the students are soldering their circuits together, making them change colors, adding music to them. And at the end, they do a showcase where they present it all to their parents and everyone else who would like to join the program. The most exciting part of this camp is just getting to see the students faces light up, getting to see them so excited on what they can actually do on their own. It only takes one time for a student to fall in love with something. So as they're exposed at a younger age, it allows them to have that time to really explore their interests and passions. And a really warms my heart to see more students getting exposed to engineering and STEM and seeing all the different things that you can do with it, and letting them know that you can do this. And if you put your mind to it, then you could be successful.