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Day 5 – Working towards a sustainable future

IMG_1630On the final day of camp, Dr. Leslie Vincent, from the College of Business, kept the students very busy investigating sustainable solutions and dreaming up big ideas. They had the opportunity to do some team building activities including another bridge building activity, which was a nice extension from what Dr. Jong did with them yesterday. The students were IMG_1583immersed in “design thinking” as they came up with their dream sustainable product.

For the final day in Robotics, the students had mini-competitions…with themselves. Instead of doing a full competition, the students worked on completing the individual challenges for Green City. We saw lots of dams IMG_1662being broken down, smoke stacks being replaced, etc. The students really seemed to enjoy robotics this week and learned a lot.

We took some video today and we’ll try to get it uploaded by Monday at the latest. We really enjoyed this group of campers and we hope that they will consider coming to the See Blue STEM Camp next year!

 

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Day 1 of See Blue STEM Camp

stem camp 2013Today we welcomed seventy 5th and 6th from across the state of Kentucky to the 4th annual See Blue STEM Camp! We had a great first day of camp today!  All of the kids enjoyed the activities.  They were able to tour of the Vis Center as well as the Engineering Buildings.  Dr. Bruce Walcott, Professor of Electrical Engineering, also had them build towers out of some rogue Lego parts.

0603131542On the robotics side the students got busy building their robots and then participated in the distance challenge.  They had to program their robots to drive up to a figure but not knock it over.  Tomorrow they will move into more difficult programming challenges.

 

Up tomorrow is Ms. Carolyn Crowdus, from the College of Medicine, who will guide the campers through the neuroscience of the human brain.  Her presentation, “Got brains? A journey through the human mind” will help campers explore and learn about the vast intricacies of the human mind. Students will have the opportunity to explore actual brains and stem cords. If you prefer your student not to participate in this activity or if you think the activity will cause a reaction please let us know.

Tomorrow night we are planning on the observatory visit – watch your email for more information!

Check out the following link for pictures:

STEM Camp pics-002

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Day 3 See Blue STEM Camp

We had another wonderful day and the weather was great as well.  We were able to view the sun today through the clear sky thanks to Dr. Knauer bringing over his telescope during lunch.  We got out on campus and walked to the Minining and Mineral Resources Building for this viewing.
For our daily presentation Dr. Christa Jackson worked on spatial reasoning through several activities.  She had the students blindly draw pictures based on their partner’s directions, make a 3-dimensional object from several 2-dimensional pictures, and design a bridge out of limited materials and  describe their design to their classmates.  We had lots of great bridge designs out of straws and pipe cleaners.
In LEGO the students worked on the first three challenges for the Green City board.  This involved closing a dam and also raising a new clean energy smoke stack.  The students had to build upon their previous days work to program the robot to complete all of these tasks.
Tomorrow robotics will get more difficult in terms of challenges.  The students will have to navigate around objects in order to complete their tasks.  Dr. Robin Cooper from the Biology Department will be presenting on neurobiology in crayfish.  The students will be visiting his lab and working with his graduate students tomorrow.  We’ll be sure to take a lot of pictures!
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See Blue STEM Camp – June 11 – 15, 2012

http://education.uky.edu/STEM/content/seebluestemcamp

See Blue STEM Camp 2012 Brochure 

We are pleased to invite your student to participate in the See Blue Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Camp June 11 – 15, 2012 at the University of Kentucky. The week-long day camp is designed to help students explore and integrate the STEM disciplines through hands-on projects and real world applications.

Dates: June 11 – 15, 2012

Ages: All students entering 6th – 9th grades for the 2012-2013 school year

Cost: $200

Where: University of Kentucky, Mining and Mineral Resources Building

Activities: Instruction in engineering, mathematics, neurobiology, astronomy, and LEGO robotics. There will be a robotics competition on the final day.

Time: 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. each day

Lunch: Provided for each participant of the camp.