Available Opportunities
STEM Adventures provides STEM learning opportunities through a curriculum of different engineering disciplines including aeronautical, aerospace, civil, electrical, energy, mechanical, and vehicle engineering. Most courses are available at a middle school and high school level, but can be tailored for advanced elementary students. Contact us if you have an interest in participating in one or more of these opportunities. Courses are typically two hour classes over five weeks and require a minimum of six students.
Aeronautical engineering involves the study, design, construction, and operation of craft that operate in the atmosphere. STEM Adventures is ready to provide the following courses:
Gliders – This course includes activities to investigate how size affects flight, calculate glider ratios, and design and build gliders from balsa wood.
Model Airplanes – This course includes activities to investigate forms of energy, calculate aerodynamic forces, modify control surfaces, vary payload and motor sizes, manipulate flight paths, and build a rubber band powered model airplane.
Hot Air Balloons – This course includes activities to work with surface area and volumes, analyze balloon flight and physics, investigate gas laws, and design and build a hot air balloon to carry a payload.
Parachutes – This course includes activities to determine load capacity, calculate velocity and acceleration, test parachute area vs. speed, test parachute shape, and design and build parachutes.
Egg Drop Vehicles – This course includes activities to calculate density, determine velocity, test egg strength, calculate potential and kinetic energy, determine vehicle volume, and design and build an egg drop vehicle.
Kites – This course includes activities to compare size and lift, calculate area and volume, determine how size affects flight, calculate density, and design and build a tetrahedral or polyhedral kite.
Aerospace engineering is the discipline that covers both aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering – covering the study, design, construction, and operation of vehicles that fly outside the atmosphere. STEM Adventures is ready to provide the following courses that focus on rocketry:
Air Powered Rockets – This course includes activities to build straw and tube rockets while varying rocket length, nose cone mass, and launch angles. In addition, activities are included to calculate average velocity, to compare mass vs. range, understand trajectory, and the effects of air pressure.
Water Rockets – This course includes activities to test and analyze fuel pressure and volume, compute apogee, and design and build a water-fueled rocket.
Solid Fuel Rockets – This course includes activities to investigate average and maximum velocity, investigate energy, calculate apogee, determine optimum ballast, and design and build a solid fuel rocket.
Civil Engineering is the discipline that that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of physical structures such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings. STEM Adventures is ready to provide the following courses that focus on structures:
Toothpick Bridges – The course includes activities to investigate shapes and strength, calculate and maximize efficiency, maximize load capacity, investigate static forces, calculate building costs, and design and build a toothpick bridge.
Balsa Bridges – This course includes activities to investigate beam strength, test joint strength, investigate laminations, and design and construct a balsa bridge.
Earthquake Towers – This course includes activities to investigate wave properties, locate epicenters, design resistance, vary mass distribution, and design and build a tower that resists damage during a simulated earthquake.
Straw Structures – This course includes activities to investigate the size and strength of polyhedrons, calculations of polyhedron efficiency, comparing repeating polyhedrons, and design and construct straw structures.
Roller Coaster Engineering – This course includes activities to investigate energy and forces, hills and dips, kinetic energy, and the design and construction of a safe and fast model roller coaster.
Electrical Engineering is the discipline that deals with the study and use of electricity and electronics and includes many sub disciplines including power, controls, telecommunications, and robotics. STEM Adventures is ready to provide the following courses:
Circuits – This course includes activities to investigate batteries, lights, switches, Ohm’s law, schematics, electronic components, printed circuit boards, soldering, and the implementation of a simple control circuit.
Introduction to Robotics – This course investigates radio controlled robotics using the VEX design system with emphasis on the structure, motion, power, sensor, and control subsystems.
Advanced Robotics – The course builds on the introductory course and adds autonomous programming using the VEX design system.
Energy Engineering is the discipline that deals with the production and use of energy. It is usually associated with alternative energy sources such as wind and solar. STEM Adventures is ready to provide the following courses:
Solar Power – This course covers the basics of solar cooking, solar water heating, and solar electricity generation along with the construction of a solar cooker and a solar water heater.
Solar Electric Vehicles – This course investigates natural vs. artificial light, gear ratios, measuring speed, calculating acceleration, and the construction of a solar powered electric vehicle.
Wind Power – This course investigates the measurement of wind speed, changing pitch angles, measuring voltage, and the construction of a windmill with blade modifications to maximize voltage.
Mechanical engineering is the discipline that studies physics and materials to design, construct, and maintain mechanical systems. STEM Adventures is ready to provide the following courses:
Simple Machines – This course investigates the basic simple machines: the lever, wheel and axle, pulley, inclined plane, wedge, and screw. The physics, math, and usages of each machines is examined along with building the machines using an engineering construction set.
Siege Machines – This course investigates the relationship between speed and mass, measuring elasticity, calculating altitude, calculating potential energy, finding initial velocity, relating mass and range, construction and modification of a catapult, and the design and use of a trebuchet.
Robotics Manipulator – The course investigate the Cartesian coordinate system, program instruction sets, simple machines, mechanical advantage, work envelopes, and the construction of a hydraulic robot manipulator arm.
Packaging Design – This course covers graphic design, bonding material strength, adjusting surface area, package cushioning, minimizing waste, and the design and construction of packages.
Vehicle Engineering is the discipline that designs and constructs devices to transport people or cargo and includes such things as bicycles, cars, motorcycles, trains, ships, boats, and aircraft. STEM Adventures is ready to provide the following courses with an emphasis on land vehicles (aircraft are covered under Aeronautical Engineering):
Gravity Vehicles – This course investigates momentum, average velocity, potential energy, material cost, and the design and construction of a gravity powered vehicle.
Mousetrap Vehicles – The course investigates simple machines, calculating velocity, relating circumference and distance, mass vs. distance, potential energy, and the design and construction of a maximum velocity mousetrap vehicle.
Air Powered Dragsters – This course investigates Newton’s laws, the identification and reduction of sources of friction, bearings, and the design and construction of an air powered dragster.
Magnetic Levitation Vehicles – This course investigates acceleration, friction and angle, and the design and construction of a maglev vehicle for maximum speed or load.
Marine Engineering – This course investigates the bottom, stern, and bow designs, and concludes with the design and construction of a model boat.