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Week 3 Kick off!

We kicked off Week 3 with a heavy, but brief, rain shower. Thanks for your patience today as we got over 210 students checked in and settled into camp routines. We’re thankful the rain held off for the rest of the day, although we had some humid walks across campus!

Today in the red and blue groups, they were with Dr. Jonathan Thomas exploring physics and learning about airplanes. They are well-versed in the four forces that enable an airplane to fly and they got to make multiple airplanes today to test out different variables to see which flew the highest, furthest, etc. In robotics, they started out with some beginning builds and learning about how to program their robot. They all got through the first build and were really excited to get to program it and watch it move initially!

The yellow and green groups were with Dr. Brandi Frisby and her team from College of Communications and Information exploring virtual reality. Students got to experience the two different types of virtual reality, learned how to create a virtual reality world, and even created their own! They really enjoyed the session and found it actually very relaxing. The pink and orange groups spent time with Dr. Robin Cooper and his lab exploring the human body. They learned about the nervous system, did some investigations with their senses and how they work with the nervous system, conducted some investigations with crayfish, and got to hold some organs today. The organs are always a favorite part of the day! In robotics, they built their robots and started some basic programming. For those who have programmed before, they dove right into the challenges!

Chem Camp enjoyed some lab safety and then dove right into investigations and experiments! They did experiments around carbon dioxide, explored macromolecules, and wrapped up the day with a DNA murder mystery.

Conversation Starters…

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

Red/Blue Groups

  • What are the 4 forces of flight?
  • How does an airplane fly in the air?
  • What different materials did you use to build your airplane today? Did your designs work the way you thought they would? What was frustrating about building your airplane? What was fun about designing your airplane?
  • What did you build with your robot today? What are you most excited about doing with your robot this week?

Yellow/Green Groups

  • What was experiencing Virtual Reality like?
  • Did you feel like you were in a room or in a different place when you had the goggles on?
  • If you could create a VR world, what would it be? Why?
  • How did your robot building go today? What are you most excited about learning about with your robot this week?

Pink/Orange Groups

  • Did you touch any organs today? What did they look like? What did they feel like?
  • What did you do with the cinnamon activity today?
  • What does the electricity in your muscles do?
  • How did your robot building go today? What are you most excited about learning about with your robot this week?

Chem Camp

  • Tell me about the sugar rainbow.
  • What are macromolecules?
  • What was the murder mystery you had to solve? What strategies did you use to solve the mystery?

Photo of the Day…

Each day we’ll post a camp highlight.  Click the picture and it will take you to the weekly photo album. 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! We leave them unedited, so if you love to edit photos…feel free! If there is a photo you wish to have removed, please email me and we’ll take it down!

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3d Pens, Nervous System and Physics!

What a fabulous day Thursday was today. This is such a great group of students! They are really exploring, investigating, asking good questions, and staying curious about everything that’s going on. We’re thankful for all the support for the camps each year. We are completely self-funded now, which was a goal of our previous grant. We are thankful for UK kicking in some money for financial assistance this year so we can keep creating opportunity and access for students and families. Several of our food vendors – Schlotzsky’s, Domino’s, and City BBQ – give us discounts which allows us to provide options for food for our students. And of course our awesome staff – inservice teachers, graduate students, preservice teachers, UK staff and faculty, and our high school mentors – we could do not anything without them! This year, we’ll serve just over 500 students for the See Blue See STEM summer experiences. It’s sometimes hard to believe that Dr. Craig Schroeder, Mark Evans and Dr. Bruce Walcott started this with just 8 students in 2010 at Jessie Clark Middle School. My how we’ve grown!

Initial flight testing on the first airplane designs

In the red and blue groups, they got to spend time with Dr. Robin Cooper and his team in the labs today. They learned about the nervous system and how it interacts and runs the different parts of the body. They got to conduct investigations on crayfish – watching their reaction time, learning how they respond to different stimuli, and learning about why we study crayfish. They visited the medical outreach lab where they got to see and hold different organs – the brain, spinal cord, and heart are big favorites! In the purple and brown groups, they spent the day with Dr. Jonathan Thomas learning about physics in the context of airplanes. They learned about the different forces that help make an airplane fly and then they constructed different types of airplanes and tested them out. The designs get really creative as they construct the different types, and this group really embraced it! In robotics, they had a creative build day and ended up having a dance party with their robots! This group of students really is a creative group and embraced it hard core when making their dancing robots today. It was so awesome to see!

One of the creative dancing robots!

In the yellow and green groups, they spent the day with Dr. Cindy Jong immersed in the world of mathematics from a very unique perspective – origami and 3D pens. The students were really surprised about how we can use origami to create models and understand things in mathematics. They came home with some pretty awesome models! The 3d pens are fantastic way for students to get creative and show that part of themselves off. We use 3d pens to form models, especially on-the-spot. In robotics, they finished up different maze challenges that allowed them to explore and use their different robot sensors. Several started on the First Lego League challenge and worked on writing more challenging code, but with less steps.

In their own words…

  • sometimes bugs or thangs like that can regrow there diffrent parts of there body.
  • That I whant to catch a crayfish
  • sensory nerves send messages from our hands to our brains
  • that you had two kines of nearves
  • That the heart does not look like the heart you draw
  • I think it’s fun to modify air planes and make them go faster.
  • How to make an origami trioctohedran.
  • It was fun and creative
  • I learned habout how to use a 3-D pen, and how to make a 3-D oragami cube.
  • How to make a stellated octotetrahedron.
Creating with the 3d pens!

Conversation Starters…

Red/Blue Groups

  • How do our senses work with our nerves in our body?
  • Why do we study crayfish? Why is the tail so important?
  • Were you able to taste the cinnamon today?
  • Did you hold any of the organs? What did they look like? What did they feel like? Did you think they would look different than they did?
  • What did you build with your robot today? What did you make it do? Did your robot do what you thought it was going to do?

Purple/Brown Groups

  • What are the 4 forces of flight?
  • How does an airplane fly in the air?
  • What different materials did you use to build your airplane today? Did your designs work the way you thought they would? What was frustrating about building your airplane? What was fun about designing your airplane?
  • What did you build with your robot today? What did you make it do? Did your robot do what you thought it was going to do?

Yellow/Green Groups

  • Why do we use origami to model different objects in mathematics? What did you enjoy about origami? What was frustrating about origami?
  • What type of object did you build and model using origami today?
  • Why do you think 3d pens could be useful in the future?
  • What did you create today with your pen?
  • What challenges did you complete with your robot? What has been your favorite thing about coding this week? What has been the most challenging?

Photo of the Day…

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Halfway Through!

Another fantastic day with this group is in the books! We cannot get over how wonderful the weather has been. We’re usually battling nearly 100 degrees by now and so this has been a welcomed change for our groups this week. While they’re at camp, students get a small flavor of college life by walking to their different sessions. Some walks are longer than others, but they are enjoying being outside and getting some exercise in between sessions. We wish we had a playground for them during the day, but college campus’ just don’t have them 🙂

The red and blue groups today were with Dr. Jonathan Thomas where they did some physics. They learned about airplanes and the different forces that help them fly. They then created all different types of paper airplanes to test out the different types of forces and what affected them. They had a lot of fun testing out their different designs. In the purple and brown groups, they were with Doug Klein in the College of Engineering’s Makerspace lab. They got to see the 3D printers in action, the lasercutter, and other equipment available to the UK students to use to design their products and prototypes for their projects. They got to use some of the software that UK students use to help design the projects. Most came home with a 3-d printed cube. In robotics, they designed race cars and tested them out. We had different kinds of races – who could go the fastest. Who could go the slowest, but still move. Who could go in a straight line. There were some very creative race cars out there! They are really enjoying the robotics, especially the lego-building part. They are doing really well with the coding – it’s really amazing how fast kids pick it up and use it!

In the yellow and green groups, they had fun with Dr. Robin Cooper and his graduate students today. They conducted some small experiments about how the body uses its different senses and communicates them to the brain. They got to hold a brain and spinal cord (if they wanted) and other organs. The students were amazed at what they looked like and felt like! In robotics, they continued with their challenges. One of the favorites today was the C-A-T-S CATS CATS CATS Mat – The groups are really doing a great job!

In their own words…

  • Glider planes need to stay at a downward pich.
  • How to make a Ufo
  • I DiDn’t now Some planes Dont need enigines to fly
  • That you can 3D modle dnt lazer cuter
  • How machines printed on wood, metal, and plastic
  • I liked that we got to make 3D objects on the computer.
  • I didn’t know what Brains were like.
  • we have tail!!!!!!!
  • I learned about how the nerves and how they differ in the body.
  • Crayfish have an attack stance.
  • I didn’t know that crayfish use sensors And motor sense just like humans but Just with their tails
  • I would like to learn more about neurons, because one of my dream jobs is a neurologist.
  • I liked that we got to see crawfish, two human hearts, a human lung, and a human brain.

Conversation Starters…

Red/Blue Groups

  • What are the 4 forces of flight?
  • How does an airplane fly in the air?
  • What different materials did you use to build your airplane today? Did your designs work the way you thought they would? What was frustrating about building your airplane? What was fun about designing your airplane?
  • What kind of car did you build today? What kind of code did you use to make it go? Did your car move the way you wanted it to?

Purple/Brown Groups

  • What was your favorite machine today? How did it work?
  • What would you like to create with one of the machines?
  • What is a 3d printer? How did it work?
  • What kind of car did you build today? What kind of code did you use to make it go? Did your car move the way you wanted it to?

Yellow/Green Groups

  • How do our senses work with our nerves in our body?
  • Why do we study crayfish? Why is the tail so important?
  • Were you able to taste the cinnamon today?
  • Did you hold any of the organs? What did they look like? What did they feel like? Did you think they would look different than they did?
  • What did you get your robot to do today? What is challenging about coding with your robot?

Picture of the Day…

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Day 3 Got flies?

Day 3 brought a very nice follow-up to Day 2’s brain activities! The students got to go over to the biology laboratory with Dr. Robin Cooper from the College of Arts and Sciences to explore animal behavior and sensory systems. They experimented with the five senses using fruit flies – looking at how they function in various conditions. The students collected data on mouth movements of the larvae and other data regarding the sense using the lab microscopes. They also completed experiments involving their own neurobiology and the five senses.

In robotics the students have started the Green City Challenge.  This started with trying to block the dam of the city. On Thursday they will continue with windmills, solar panels, etc. The kids are really excited about the challenges and have really enjoyed programming and testing their programs – it’s great to see the engineering practices at work!

Did you know that the See Blue STEM Camp not only benefits your student, but students of UK as well? We are very fortunate this year to have graduate students from STEM Education, Engineering, and Biology help out with the presentations. They are learning a lot about working with adolescents as well as sharpening their presentation skills. We also have a few preservice mathematics teachers helping us out this week and next week; they have gained invaluable hands-on experiences in working with middle school students!

Click below for updated pictures

STEM Camp pics