MassRobotics is recruiting the third cohort of its high-school Jumpstart Fellowship Program to improve diversity in the STEM workforce in Massachusetts. Through training, mentorship, and internships, a selected group of students in Grades 10-12 will learn about careers in robotics, develop professional networks via mentors and resumes / LinkedIn profiles, and gain exposure to technical skills in programming, design, simulation, prototyping, and testing. Upon completion of the program’, students will receive a stipend of $1000. All female students, especially those who are Black and Latinx, in Grades 10-12 in Massachusetts high schools who have a passion for robotics and technology are encouraged to apply by November 20. No prior skill is required. There will be online information sessions at 5PM on October 17, November 1, 11, and 14. Students must be available for orientation on December 17 and on Saturdays & Wednesdays, January 7 – May 19.

It’s Massachusetts STEM Week, October 17-21, with the theme “See Yourself in STEM” and a focus on the power of mentoring.

• Explore the STEM Week Design Challenges posed by Buck Institute for Education, kids in tech, Wade Institute, WPI STEM Education Center, Boston’s Museum of Science, i2 Learning, and New England FIRST.
• The Massachusetts STEM Council is partnering with the Mass Mentoring Partnership to build capacity and engagement in mentoring across the state during STEM Week and beyond. Sign up to be a mentor here.

The MIT Museum has re-opened in its new Kendall Square location in the Gambrill Center (MIT Building E-28), 314 Main Street in Cambridge. It’s open daily, 10AM-5PM. The Museum includes public meeting spaces, a hands-on Maker Hub, and freshly conceived, interactive exhibits presenting high-level research for those new to science or already experts.

The NASA TechRise Challenge invites teams of students in Grades 6-12 to design experiments to be run in a high-altitude balloon. A TechRise team may have any number of students, and all team members must be from the same school. Each team must have one Team Lead who is a teacher or school employee. Teams must submit their designs by October 24, and the winning teams will be build their designs in 2023. Winners will be announced on January 12. Sixty teams with winning designs will each receive a grant of $1,500 to build their experiments, technical support and office hours with mentors, as well as an assigned spot on a NASA-sponsored high-altitude balloon.

The Broad Discovery Center is a new, free, public, educational space about how researchers at the Broad Institute and elsewhere tackle some of the toughest questions in biomedicine to understand human health and disease, and create new approaches for treatments. It’s located on the first floor of the Broad Institute’s headquarters (415 Main Street in Kendall Square, Cambridge). Exhibits address exhibits psychiatric conditions, cancer, infectious diseases, heart disease, diabetes, and rare genetic conditions. You can get a preview of its five galleries during the Cambridge Science Festival, October 3-6. It will open during regular business hours starting October 31 and will be staffed 10AM-3PM.

Each fall and spring, NEPTUN (a Northeastern University student group) hosts Splash!, a free program for students in Grades 9-12 to take fun and informative mini-classes led by Northeastern undergraduate students. This year, Splash! will again be held in-person at Ryder Hall (11 Leon St, Boston) on the Northeastern campus, on November 12, 8:45AM-6:40PM. The $0 cost includes free pizza and a T-shirt. Registration is now open 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. Among the 26 in-person Splash! courses this year are these STEM offerings:

• Epigenetics: Why everything you know about genetics is wrong
• I’m So Tired: Why You Feel Like You Never Get A Good Night of Sleep
• Plant-on-Plant Violence
• Glowing Plants? Yes, Glowing Plants.
• Get Some Structure in Your Life: Modelling the Cytoskeleton
• Exploring the Engineering Design Process with Rube Goldberg Machines
• Playful Peep Science
• [ACCESS_GRANTED]: 1N7R0 70 H4CK1NG
• The Key to Unlocking Data: An Intro to Database Management
• Can We Make You Enjoy Math?
• Let there be Lights!
• 👀😲👍 – Emoji: How They Work and Why They Break Everything

All Massachusetts members of Congress have joined other House colleagues in hosting a Congressional App Challenge in their Congressional Districts. Students in Grades 6-12 may register, as individuals or in teams of up to four, in the Congressional District in which they live or attend school. Newton is in District MA04 (Representative Jake Auchincloss), where so far five teams have registered. The competition is open to all eligible students regardless of coding experience (see CAC flyer and CAC rules).

Apps may be created in any language, on any platform, on any theme or purpose. They must be submitted by November 1 at 12PM. Submissions will be evaluated by local judges who work in academic, software, and entrepreneurial fields. The winning app from each participating Congressional District will be announced in December and will be highlighted online and in an exhibit in the Capitol.