STEM Night

Last Thursday was meeting 8 of the Robotic Dudes. We were preparing for the STEM night, which was last Friday. We didn't have to do a presentation, just take turns with the other Lego teams from the school manning a booth with the challenge table and a couple robots. We were to just be there working on things and talk to people as they came up to us.

In our meeting on Thursday, it was a pretty low key work day. We were broken up into a couple different groups. As usual, some were working harder on things than others. One of the boys was singing Weird Al's The Saga Begins, a spoof of American Pie about Star Wars Episode I. It is one of my favorite songs (both Don's and Al's versions), so I put it on the room's speakers. Then I somehow turned into a DJ, taking requests for songs they wanted to hear. I was hoping the background music would help them focus some, but it actually distracted a little bit. It wasn't too bad, as I turned it down so it wasn't too loud. I was kind of surprised that Lukas Graham's Once I Was Seven Years Old was the most requested song. I don't think they were going to let me out of there without playing it. I mean, it's a good song and all. I guess they like channeling their inner seven year olds.

The actual STEM Night was pretty good. There were a lot of people there, throughout the school. The star gazing was a big hit, with a portable, inflatable planetarium. I didn't make it inside as there were a lot of kids lined up to go in there. There was a 3D printing station, some dogs from the humane society, and paper airplane contest. They had pizza and lots of science exhibits from the university and other groups around town, so a good atmosphere.

As for our particular station, I think it was okay. The other teams did the first shifts. Those teams seemed pretty well behaved and able to talk to people about what they were doing. We were at the end. I thought the crowds would have thinned out more by then, but people seemed to be sticking around. We had to clean everything up, which wasn't too bad. Several of the challenge pieces were broken, or maybe better said slightly disassembled, from everyone wanting to touch them. Some of that is from random kids and adults looking at things and some of it was from our team not being able to keep their hands off. I was a little surprised at how excited some of the team was, like they had never seen the challenge kit before, grabbing pieces they wanted to play with and yelling like they were at a birthday party. I mean, it was loud in there already, with as many people as were crammed into the cafetorium (combined cafeteria and auditorium), but I guess it's good that they're still excited to be there.