(To see what we did for our first STEAM night in 2015, see our previous post)
This year we kept a couple favorite activities and brought in a whole bunch of new experiences as well. In the art room, our families were able to participate in Pendulum Painting, using force and momentum to change the design as they swung the pendulum.
We were fortunate, once again, to have former Summit students who are now on the Oconomowoc High School Robotics Team bring their robots and their knowledge to share with our students. We're so grateful for their generosity to give up their time to do this each year!
Another returning favorite this year was the Amazing Race Family Scavenger Hunt. Mr. Dirkmann integrated math and logic problems with physical challenges that took them around the school in a frenzy of running and hippity-hopping.
New to STEAM night this year, Home Depot donated 100 Kids' Workshop woodworking kits that families could build in the makerspace and take home with them. The room was packed all night. This was a big hit with kids of all ages!
And in the library, families were invited to become newscasters in front of the green screen on our newly finished stage. We have some very natural actors in our midst! We also set up our Osmos in the library, running the Masterpiece app. Here, participants could use the app to help them draw their own masterpieces. We're so grateful to OPEF for funding our Maker Cart grant this year, which allowed us to purchase the Osmos for our students to use.
Highlighting some more of our new Maker Cart equipment, we had a robotics and engineering cart station set up in the cafeteria, where families could explore some of the new building kits in the tech and science carts.
Another station that was available to families was our Sink-or-Float activity. Participants built boats out of a variety of materials from the makerspace, with no specifications to the size or shape. Then they could test its buoyancy in the water tables.
We also had a helicopter making station. Kids decorated and made helicopters, then tested how the number of paperclips affected the flight of their helicopters.
Always a favorite, we had our MaKey MaKey kits set up for play as well. Students showed their parents how to use the MaKey MaKey to make fruit pianos, Play-doh drums, and joysticks to play PacMan online.
We brought back the Angry Bird Catapult station this year, where families tried to see how they could knock down the most bricks by changing the distance, the angle, and the speed of their launched bird.
We also had an unplugged coding activity, where families guided their "robot" to build a cup tower without talking, by only giving them directions using the coding arrow posters. And lastly, we had a straws-and-connectors tower building area, where families put their engineering and design skills to the test to see how tall they could build a structure that could hold up a book.
Planning has already begun for next year's STEAM night, and families all said they had a wonderful time!!
**Thank you to Home Depot for donating the woodworking kits, OHS Robotics team for helping us out, and MSOE for donating raffle prizes.
