All posts by newtonstem

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.

LigerBots excel in first qualifying match of the season

Accomplishments

From Newton North HS Senior Davis R: This weekend, the LigerBots, Newton’s dual-high-school robotics team, finished strongly at Bridgewater State University for their first New England District Qualifier. After two fierce days of competition and overcoming a series of technical challenges, the team placed as a finalist out of 36 teams. In addition, the LigerBots won the Engineering Inspiration Award.

This is only the beginning. Tomorrow, the LigerBots will be back in the shop, taking lessons from the competition to make strategic improvements. This will prepare them for the next competition, the New England District Greater Boston Event in two weeks on March 23-24.

NOTE: FIRST Robotics says: “The Engineering Inspiration Award celebrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s school or organization, and community. Inspiring others to respect science and technology requires passion, knowledge and commitment, and we recognize these qualities through this award.”

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.

Harvard Museum of Natural History: Summer Science Weeks

Summer

Registration is open for Summer Science Weeks at the Harvard Museum of Natural History (26 Oxford Street, Cambridge):

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

Ocean STEAM Powered Women Fellowship: Info session Mar. 5

Opportunities, Summer

Applications are open until April 4 for young women in Grades 10-11 to apply for a 2024 O-STEAM Fellowship, sponsored by WHOI Sea Grant at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Sea Education Association. This fellowship will run August 11-17 and aims to promote diversity and expose young women to a variety of careers in STEAM.

Register for the online Info Session on March 5 at 6PM.

O-STEAM student fellows will work with a predominantly female team of researchers to explore a variety of STEAM-related activities. The team will explore challenges that are unique to women in science. In seeing themselves represented, our teens can gain a sense of belonging. The program is available to students who are in Grades 10-11 in Massachusetts and who are interested in being in a female-identified space. No experience is required.

There is no cost. The fellowship award includes travel to and from Woods Hole, food, and accommodations. See the program flyer. Apply on the O-STEAM webpage by April 4. Notifications will be made by May 2024. For more information, email Grace Simpkins, gsimpkins@whoi.edu.

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