Holiday STEM Festival

​On December 10th, we hosted our annual Holiday STEM Party at the University Community Library. Participants made science and engineering-based, holiday-themed arts and crafts. In build-a-sleigh, we used cardboard and balloons to design self-propelling sleighs, learning about physics and aerodynamics. We used baking soda and shaving cream, with food coloring and glitter to make “fake” snow, and we used oil, water, alka seltzer to make snow globes, and learned about chemistry behind it. We made gingerbread houses using Graham crackers, icing as glue, jelly beans, m&m’s and sprinkles, aiming to engineer the tallest and sturdiest houses. Last but not least, we also made Christmas themed origami, practicing our geometry skills.

One participant said, “It was really fun. My favorite activity was the gingerbread house.” Another participant heartily agreed: “it was very yummy too. I also learned about the polarity of water at the snow globe station.”

We hope you join us at our data science workshop in January. We will also be hosting NASA Astrocamps, in collaboration with the Clueless FTC team and Mission Valley Library on 1/7/23 and 2/4/23.