STEMVillage Summer Camp – Week 2, Day 1 Highlights

STEMVillage Week 2 is off to a dynamic start! Our campers wasted no time diving into projects that explored the connections between engineering, physics, and everyday life.

The morning began with campers designing and testing index card towers. With a weight placed at the top, each structure had to support it without toppling over—encouraging lessons about structural integrity, center of gravity, and balance. Every design was different, and campers learned quickly that even small adjustments in height or base width could change everything.

Next, students made their own musical instruments, including harmonicas and string-based devices. This was their entry point into the science of sound: how vibrations become sound waves, how those waves interact with air, and how our ears interpret frequency and pitch. It was a perfect combination of creativity and physics.

To close out the day, students got hands-on with bottle rockets. These high-flying experiments introduced campers to aerodynamics, thrust, and the importance of material science in engineering for strength and precision. The joy of watching their rockets soar was matched by deep thinking about what made some fly farther or straighter than others. It was an explosive end to a phenomenal first day!