Category Archives: Events

Edgerton Center Teams Showcase, Apr. 9

Events

MIT’s Edgerton Center will host the Edgerton Teams Showcase on April 9, 4PM-5PM, in Lobby 13 (77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge), where 16 student teams will present their current projects. The MIT Solar Electric Vehicle Team will unveil its latest creation, Gemini, and the MIT Motorsports Team will unveil its MY2024 race car. For more information, email Peggy at peysenba@mit.edu. Participating teams:

Arcturus (Roboboat), AssistiveTechnology Club, ChemE Cube, Combat RoboticsClub, Design Build Fly, Electric Vehicle Team, First NationsLaunch,  MIT Radio Society WIMX, MITERS, Motorsports,  Robotics Team, Rocket Team, Solar Electric Vehicle Team, Spokes, Sustainable Engine Team, Wind Team

Acton-Boxborough Math Competition, in person and online, Apr. 6

Events

The Acton-Boxborough Math Competition (ABMC) will take place on April 6, 8AM-2PM, at R.J. Grey Junior High School (16 Charter Road, Acton). It’s a Mathcounts-style competition open to students in Grades K-8, competing individually or in teams of 2-4. Register online  as an individual competitor, a pre-registered team, or an individual to be randomly assigned to a team. The cost is $20 if registered online or $25 if registered in-person at the competition.

Prizes are awarded to high-scoring individuals and teams. ABMC will also host a free online contest with the same format as the on-site contest, but online contestants are not eligible for prizes and will be ranked separately.

The difficulty of problems ranges from beginner to Mathcounts National-level. They are written by former Mathcounts competitors, including JMO and AMO qualifiers. The event is an opportunity to compete against some of the best competitors from around the area. The 2023 ABMC drew nearly 200 competitors.
For more information, email contact@abmathcompetitions.org.

Acera School Math Festival in Winchester, Apr. 7

Events

Acera School (5 Lowell Ave, Winchester) will host its Math Festival on Sunday, April 7, 10AM to 12PM for students in Grades K-12. It’s a free event of math and logic-themed games designed to inspire creative reasoning and collaborative problem-solving. Parents/guardians with their kids are all welcome — and invited to bring friends. Register online.

Math challenges include: Algebra on Squares, Chocolate Fix, Game of Amazons, Hexahexaflexagons, Jumping Frogs, Jumping Julia, Mosaics, Rook’s Move, Skyscrapers, and Tower of Hanoi.

Blue Hill Observatory: Solar Eclipse Webinar (Mar. 12) and Viewing (Apr. 8)

Events, Virtual/Online

Blue Hill Observatory will offer a free webinar, Solar Eclipse 2024, on March 12 at 6:30PM, about the solar eclipse coming on April 8. The webinar features host Tim Kelley and climate scientist Dr. Tamara Ledley.

The Blue Hill Observatory will also host an in-person Eclipse Viewing Event on April 8 at 2PM. (donation $30, or $20 for students and seniors).

Register here for either or both events.

Grades 7-10: Register by Mar. 5 for MIT SPARK (Mar. 16-17)

Events, Opportunities

Run by MIT undergraduate and graduate students, SPARK offers students in Grades 7-10 a variety of short, interesting classes on the MIT campus over one weekend, March 16-17 (10AM-6PM on Saturday, 9AM-6PM on Sunday). The registration lottery is open now through 11:59PM on March 5, and until that deadline all course preferences will be treated equally in the lottery. After that, any remaining seats will be open first-come/first-served. Students may choose from about 100 courses and must register on their own. To fill your schedule, rank your top 3 classes and star at least 10 classes per time block. A $70 fee covers two days of classes and lunch and lots of walk-in activities. Generous financial aid is available. For more information not covered here, email spark@mit.edu. Here are STEM courses offered:

  • Making art with Robots
  • Linux and open source software
  • Introduction to Programming in OCaml
  • Better Coding with Vim: Intro to Keybinds and Configuration
  • Web Development Crash Course
  • Tales of the Americas through biology and genetics
  • It’s Not Rocket Science (Wait, Yes It Is!)
  • How to Run an Airline
  • CAD Croc Creations: Make Your Own Jibbitz!
  • Extreme Engineering
  • How To Build A Road Legal Solar Car
  • How do cars work?
  • Explore ZeroE Aviation!
  • Tales of Antiquity though engineering
  • Engineers Without Borders: Projects in Global Development
  • Pixel Pioneers: Journey into AI Vision & Robotics!
  • Beyond Numbers: The Adventure After Calculus
  • Intro to Japanese Soroban
  • Geometry and Beauty of Soap Bubbles
  • Mathematical Matchmaking
  • High Speed Mathematics
  • Cosmology: The Universe at Large
  • Seeing is Believing? The Science of Optical and Auditory Illusions
  • Using ChatGPT
  • Traveling at the Speed of Light
  • Introduction to Global Health
  • Sensory Safari: A Brain Exploration
  • Flaming Fruit Fusion
  • The AI Revolution and What it Means for Public Health
  • COMPOSTING – achieving Sustainability Goals
  • The Fascinating Physics of Solids
  • The Strongest Force in the Universe
  • Let’s Explore the Periodic Table!
  • Digging Deeper: 4.65 Billion Years in 150 Minutes
  • What’s in a Nuclear Reactor?
  • 3,2,1 Beyblade Physics!
  • Let’s Talk about the Weather!
  • How to be a Linguistic Detective
  • The Psychology of Superheroes: Understanding the Minds of Fictional Heroes and Villains
  • Making Waves : An Introduction to Phonetic Speech Analysis

MIT Open House for Grades 6-12: Microrobotics and Synthetic Biology, Mar. 9

Events

Researchers from MIT, Boston University, and the University of Delaware will host an outreach event on Microrobotics and Synthetic Biology for middle and high school students , in two sessions on March 9. The program is primarily aimed to support and encourage female and underrepresented minority students to explore STEM. Students will learn how concepts of robotics can foster the development of new biological systems and applications.

Prof. Sambeeta Das will introduce the students to microrobotics, and then Dr. Rashmi Mohanty will discuss the importance of microrobotics in biological applications. Finally, students will receive hands-on experience in controlling magnetically driven microrobots and will guide the microrobots in biological systems.

No registration is required.  It’s an Open House in two separate sessions: The morning session (10AM-11:30AM) or the afternoon session (1PM-2:30PM). The event will take place at 500 Technology Square (behind Area 4), MIT NE47-189, in Cambridge.

For information about the event, email Rashmi at rashmipm@mit.edu. For general information or building access, call Cammie at  617-733-3623

Grades 8-12: Register for Northeastern Splash!, Mar. 30

Events

Each spring, NEPTUN (a Northeastern University student group) hosts Splash!, a free program for students in Grades 8-12 to take fun and informative mini-classes led by Northeastern undergraduate students. This year, Splash! will again be held in-person at Ryder Hall on the Northeastern campus, on March 30, 8:30AM-6:40PM. The $0 cost includes free lunch and a T-shirt. Registration is opens at midnight on March 4 and is first-come/first-served and requires setting up a free student account. For more information, see the FAQs or contact nu.neptun@gmail.com. You can also access online recordings of Digital Splash! courses from 2020. Among the 20 in-person Splash! courses this year are these STEM offerings:

  • Bye Bye Baby! V2
  • Electronics and Soldering Workshop
  • Python Programming for Pupils
  • The Entire Internet in an Hour!
  • Emoji: How They Work and Why They Break Everything
  • Eye-Q Boost: Let’s make an eyeball model!
  • How to preserve dead things
  • Science In A Jar: DIY Lava Lamps
  • It Gets Butter With Time

Wonderland: Free high-school hackathon in Newton, Feb. 23-25

Events, Opportunities

Wonderland is a free, 48-hour hackathon, February 23-25, “bringing students from all over the Boston area for a weekend of unhindered creation.” It’s organized by six high-school seniors (including ones from Newton North HS and Newton South HS) under the auspices of nonprofit Hack Club with support from WPS Institute in Newton Centre, which is providing the venue. (Last spring, this team of student organizers ran the Beantown Bash hackathon, also with Hack Club.)

Wonderland is open to high-school students 18 and under. (Older high-school students may email wonderland@hackclub.com to check eligibility.) While drawing mainly from the Greater Boston area, the event also has limited travel stipends available for others to participate from further away.

Wonderland is not a typical hackathon; it doesn’t involve computer hacking, and no coding is required. It’s for both beginners and experienced makers to get together and create. In the words of the organizers, it’s for “any student interested in making projects with their hands. From software, to hardware, and every art project in between, Wonderland is a space for high school students to pursue the unimaginable.”

The organizers describe Wonderland: “Centered around mystery chests, we’re challenging participants to build projects out of what they’re given. How will you combine a Python gif generator and receipt printer? What about a keyboard and RC car? There is no limit to what can be made in Wonderland!”

The event is free and runs from 4PM on Friday to 12PM on Sunday at WPS Institute (160 Herrick Road, Newton Centre). Food and sleeping accommodations are provided. See the parents’ guide.

Students should register here individually. Teams will be created on-site.

Tufts Engineering Design Challenge webinar, Grades K-12, Feb. 21

After School, Events, Virtual/Online

Tufts University’s Center for Engineering Education and Outreach will host a live webinar — Engineering Design Challenge — for students in Grades K-12 on February 21 at 4PM. Register here.

“Kids will be presented with an engineering design challenge to do at home with whatever materials they have around the house (cardboard, string, tape, paperclips, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, cups, scissors, paper towel rolls, random LEGO bricks, etc). While attendees build, a panel of Tufts undergraduate students and a professional engineer will talk about engineering and their paths to studying engineering.”