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2025 Summer Workshops

SCI-TECH SUMMER MAKERS 2025

New England Sci-Tech Summer Makers are young inventors, coders, builders, and super scientists who love any kind of science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEM or STEAM).

For children entering grades 4 through 9 in the fall.

THEME WEEKS are for enrichment; they supplement, not replace, the regular weekly activities.

This five-day program runs Monday–Friday, 9:00-12:00 and 12:00-3:00. Certain weeks may be shorter because of a holiday or conflict.

Rate: 5 days, 3 hours AM or 3 hours PM, total 15 hours a week for $315. (members $255) (4-day week $252, members $204) Payment of $50 due on registration, balance due 50% at 60 days and remainder at 30 days before session. Cancellation fee $30.

In addition to registering for this workshop, please fill out the Student Permissions Form.

SCI-TECH SUMMER TIPS

Bookmark for future reference: https://nescitech.org/summer.

Early drop-off and late pickup are in the half hour each side of each 3-hour block.

Students who attend an AM and PM workshop on the same day may stay through the lunch time for no extra charge. NE SciTech offers snacks and lunch items for purchase (most items are $1 or $1.50 each) or students may bring their own food. There is a refrigerator.

Students should bring a small backpack for personal items such as a water bottle with their NAME on it, a snack, lunch if staying through noon, summer reading book, etc. Please put your child's NAME on ALL PERSONAL ITEMS. Please, no chewing gum or candy.

WEEK 1: Mon-Fri, Jun 16-20, AM 9:00-12:00; PM 12:00-3:00

SPACE SCIENCE WEEK: Explore the evolving boundary between Science and Science Fiction. Build air-powered and engine powered rockets, experiment with Newton's Laws of Motion and the Bernoulli effect, learn about future Moon and Mars missions, how a Tesla roadster got into space… While watching excerpts of 2001 A Space Odyssey, we will chronicle the advances in 60 years of space technology. Join our public telescope night at week's end to celebrate an astronomical event on Saturday, June 21, the Summer Solstice!

WEEK 2: Mon-Fri, Jun 23-27, AM 9:00-12:00; PM 12:00-3:00

ELECTRONIC GADGETS WEEK: Build an awesome electronics gadget or invent your own! Learn to use soldering irons to connect electronic circuits. Make a potato battery, electromagnet, and Morse Code oscillator. Learn how wireless communications works with the electromagnetic spectrum. Experiment with a Tesla coil and Van de Graff generator. Make a long-distance contact using ham radio. Join us at the week's end with an awesome communications event on Saturday called Radio Field Day.

WEEK 3: Mon-THUR, June 30-July 3 (4-day), AM 9:00-12:00; PM 12:00-3:00
(Note: short week ends Thursday.)

BACK TO THE MOON WEEK: Moon missions, rovers, Neil Armstrong. Explore planetary and Lunar geology, examine rocks from other planets. See a rock from Mars and touch a rock from the Moon. Make a meteorite into a piece of jewelry you can keep. Learn about the Artemis Mission to return to the Moon. Join our nightly public telescope viewing to see the First Quarter Moon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, 8:00-9:00 PM.

WEEK 4: TUE-THU, July 8-10, (3-day) AM 9:00-12:00; PM 12:00-3:00 (SHORT WEEK)

CRYOGENICS WEEK: Conductors and insulators, semiconductors, and SUPER Conductors – what are they? How are they changing the world? We will have Liquid Nitrogen available to do experiments - freezing flowers, freezing air, freezing water vapor, even freezing Nitrogen itself to make the surface of Pluto! We will examine the coldest places on the Moon, other planets, and the universe. Then, we introduce the LN2 Hero's engine challenge where we make ping-pong balls hover in mid-air! Join our public telescope night on July 10 to celebrate the first full moon of Summer, the full Buck Moon!

WEEK 5: Mon-Fri, July 14-18, AM 9:00-12:00; PM 12:00-3:00

PHOTONICS WEEK: Capture some photons and examine the nature of color, wave energy, and particle physics. We will experiment with mirrors, lenses, and lasers, and learn how cameras, microscopes, and telescopes work. We will use spectroscopes to examine the fingerprint of elements in the periodic table and observe how electrons emit and absorb photons while making "quantum" leaps in their orbits. We will examine how certain elements provide the color of fireworks. Finally we use the planetarium to watch Seeing, a show about how our eyes can see light as we follow some photons from a distant star to an astronomer's eyes. On Saturday, July 20, celebrate the day in 1969 that Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon.

WEEK 6: Mon-Fri, July 21-25, AM 9:00-12:00; PM 12:00-3:00

THERMOPOLIUM WEEK: From ancient Greco-Roman culture, a thermopolium was a shop for ready-to-eat hot food, like our fast-food places today. We will learn to make things from common kitchen ingredients, some edible, some not so, some using thermodynamics, some not. We will try our hand at making bread, chocolates, popcorn, potato chips, sorbet or ice cream, elephants toothpaste, Oobleck, and slime. We will also examine and even taste a few culturally important foods from ancient Roman times, some exotic and some not so, and learn how we know about them 2,000 years later. We will also celebrate National Thermal Engineering Day, July 24th, as that is the hottest day of the year.

WEEK 7: Mon-Fri, Jul 28 - Aug 1, AM 9:00-12:00; PM 12:00-3:00

OCCUPY MARS WEEK: Explore the science of living in space, on the Moon, or on Mars. We will examine meteorites from space, from the moon, and from Mars. We will try to grow potatoes in hydroponics and in Martian simulant soil. While watching clips from the movie The Martian, we will learn to calculate how long it takes to communicate between planets. We will also learn about the origins of the names of planets and their moons through Greek mythology. The week ends with public telescope nights to see the First Quarter Moon, Thu, Fri, Sat, 8:00-9:00 PM.

WEEK 8: Mon-Fri, Aug 4-8, AM 9:00-12:00; PM 12:00-3:00

INTERSTELLAR WEEK: What is holding the universe together? Exploring the “glue” and the particles that make life, the universe and everything. While watching clips of the movie Interstellar, we will explore Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, time dilation, and the twins paradox. We will build a "gravity well" and experiment with the warping of space. We will watch a planetarium show about black holes. Join our public telescope nights Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, 8:00-9:00 PM, culminating with the full Sturgeon Moon on Saturday.

WEEK 9: Mon-Fri, Aug 11-15, AM 9:00-12:00; PM 12:00-3:00

COLLISIONS AND PERCUSSIONS WEEK: Make a Mars lander with an egg passenger, drop it from three stories high, and make it survive! Learn about potential vs. kinetic energy and how to dissipate energy before the egg cracks. Learn how NASA lands heavy rovers on Mars. Use this principle to make the egg survive a "sudden deceleration" in "crash test eggs" experiments. Apply your new understanding to the science of billiards on the pool table, to candle pins in a bowling alley, to percussion instruments, and to making music by physical vibrations of a needle on vinyl, while celebrating National Vinyl Record Day on Aug 12.

WEEK 10: Mon-THUR, Aug 18-21 (4-day), AM 9:00-12:00; PM 12:00-3:00
(Note: short week ends Thursday.)

WIRELESS WORLD WEEK: Experiment with wireless communications technologies and build an FM radio receiver. Learn about Morse Code and the Titanic, cell phones and autonomous cars, satellites, the internet, and the history of radio. The week ends with a radio communication convention in Marlborough, called HamX. Celebrate National Radio Day on Wed, Aug 20. Join us on Saturday, Aug 23, for a huge electronics flea market, educational talks, and a Youth Forum.

WEEK 11: Mon-THUR, Aug 25-28 (4-day), AM 9:00-12:00; PM 12:00-3:00
(Note: short week ends Thursday.)

ROCKET SCIENCE WEEK: Yes, this IS rocket science! Build air-powered and engine powered rockets, water-powered rockets, experiment with Newton's Laws of Motion and the Bernoulli effect, learn about Moon and Mars missions, how a Tesla roadster got into space…

ACTIVITIES OFFERED

While we generally steer everyone toward group activities, within time and staffing constraints we try to give students choices and variety.

Workshops may include Electronic Kits Soldering, Battlin’ Bots, LASER cutting and engraving, Woodworking Projects, Model Rocketry, Planetarium Shows, Bridge Building Contests, Oobleck, Arts and Crafts, Shortwave & Ham Radio, Making Kites, Chess / Board Games, Pinewood Derby Racing, Airplane Design Contest, Chess Tournaments, Billiards tournaments, MIDI keyboard music.

One average size project kit per session is built into the price of the workshop. Larger or advanced kits or projects that consume more than average material will be billed at cost with your permission. This might include extra wood, additional electronics kits, rocket kits, and over-size 3D print objects, for example.

COMFORT ZONE

Although workshops are structured instructional time, we recognize that some students need frequent breaks or change of pace, so students are welcome to switch in and out of structured activities as they wish. Those arriving earlier or staying later will have unstructured time to socialize, work on projects, play games, watch educational science videos, or just chill out.

Students may bring in their own science or educational items at their own risk, labeled with their name, in an appropriate container, box, or backpack. These items may include their own laptop computers if doing computer activities, although we have computers for general use. They may bring Magic cards, inexpensive musical instruments, sketchpads, a summer reading book, small electronic devices, small robots, or licensed amateur radios. If you have questions about what is acceptable to bring, please call.

TOUR BEFORE REGISTERING

Check us out before signing up! See our facilities, and meet our staff. Come to one of our regular OPEN HOUSES. Or call to schedule an appointment.

We want you and your child to be comfortable with our facility and program, and we prefer that you not sign up until after you have toured the facility and met us.

RECOMMENDATIONS

We recommend that a child not attend too many weeks in a row or too many AM+PM sessions in a row because they will find certain activities tend to repeat regularly.

Some children love to repeat activities, some do not. Which does your child prefer? Please book sessions with that in mind.