Tuesday, Day 2

Day 2

Today was a fabulous second day at STEM InCYte Camp! We were outside for the morning enjoying the delightful weather and beautiful ISU campus. We had a day full of STEM fun and excitement.

We will post a blog post each day with highlights from camp and some conversation starters. The conversation starters are meant to help you get over the “What did you learn today?” “Nothin’” or <shrugging the shoulders> we often see at the adolescent age. We will also post a link to the photos we are taking throughout the week. If at any time you want a photo removed that is of your child, please let us know and we’ll be happy to take it down.

Morning

Students started their morning in with the Department of Aerospace Engineering in Howe Hall. We explored jet engines biplane wings, and AstroCY. We spent most of the morning in the Virtual Reality Applications Center (VRAC). Students learned how virtual and augmented reality solves problems for people with disabilities and global issues. Dr. Gilbert, director of VRAC, presented the students with several demonstrations allowing us to experience a 3D version of engineering a John Deere combine, flight on an aircraft carrier, and exploration of the solar system.

We finished our morning learning about a small robot called Sphero. You can learn more about Spheros here and here.

Afternoon

For lunch, we enjoyed walking tacos and clementines. After lunch, groups split up into two large groups to learn about car design and development. The first group worked with EDISON, an engineering software program, to design a car, which they also started building. Most groups completed their car body and picked their wheels today. The second group tested how adding and subtracting weight affected the momentum, speed, and energy of a car. Students completed multiple trials to make conclusions about their experiments.

Our day ended with an engineering challenging using Spheros. Teams of students were tasked with getting their Spheros from the floor onto a desk. This is especially challenging because the Spheros cannot elevate independently. This will require students to design and build something to solve this challenge.

In their own words

Each day we’ll post some excerpts from the students’ reflections of what they learned each day at the STEM Content session. We don’t correct for spelling or grammar in these.

“Virtual reality can change the world in many ways!”

“VR can help with training our soldiers.”

“I would like to learn more about VR because I can help whith it.”

“VR helps blind people and doctors.”

“in VRAC you can build your own dream place you want to be at.”

“I never new what a spheros was. Spheros can move slow and fast.”

“Waght can make cars go slower”

“I like that what I lernd something interesting.”

I learned “that more the weight has more energy.”

“Spheros was fun!”

Conversation Starters

We know your child is getting to the age where it might be hard to get them to talk about their day beyond, “It was fine.” “It was fun.” “I didn’t do anything.” So, each day we’ will post some suggested conversation starters centered on camp activities or STEM-related themes.

• Discuss how virtual reality can help solve global issues and concerns.
• Talk about the variety of people and education backgrounds are necessary to make virtual reality possible.
• What was your favorite part of being on the Iowa State University campus?
• Ask students what they have learned about engineering.
• Talk about how weight impacts the movement and energy of a car.
• Ask your student about the Sphero engineering task. Brainstorm together about potential solutions to get their Sphero from the floor to the table.

Photos of the Day

Each day we’ll post camp highlights. Please note that we try to capture pictures of all the campers, but we cannot guarantee that we will get every single one. We try our very best to though! Also we are STEM teachers and not full time photographers, so our pictures are not perfect and we leave them unedited, so if you love to edit photos… feel free!