July 6 – August 14, 2026 · Mount Vernon, NY
A free six-week summer camp for elementary and middle school students. Aircraft, gear-powered racers, working circuits, and the living world — built with real materials, tested by the students who made them, and rebuilt when they don't work the first time.
6
weeks
July 6 – Aug 14, 2026
12
sessions
Two per week
100
free seats
For local students
$0
cost
Materials included
Two flagship projects, each ending in a test the students run themselves. Nothing is a kit — every design decision is theirs to make and to get wrong.
Photo slot
Students launching gliders
Flagship build 01
Students start with paper gliders and end with aircraft they designed themselves. Along the way they work out why a long thin wing glides farther than a short fat one, and what happens when you move the center of mass.
Photo slot
A student's gear-powered racer mid-test
Flagship build 02
A rubber band stores energy. A gear train decides whether that energy becomes speed or climbing power. Students build a chassis, pick their ratios, and find out on the test track that they cannot have both.
The hardest part of teaching engineering to nine-year-olds is not the engineering. It is the first ten minutes. This order came out of a lot of trial and error, and advice from teachers who have been doing it longer.
The session opens with the build, not the theory. Kids see what they are going to make and why it is worth making before anyone explains anything.
A short foundational lesson with the floor genuinely open. Questions that go sideways are usually the ones worth following.
The concept returns as a decision they have to make with their own hands. Abstract ideas stick when they change what a student does next.
Every student leaves with something that works. Covering less material and finishing beats covering more and stopping halfway.
Elementary school
Shorter builds, more hands-on time, and a heavier emphasis on testing and iterating than on the underlying math.
Middle school
The same projects with the science made explicit — ratios, forces, and trade-offs students reason through before they cut anything.
No prior experience required, and nothing to bring. Every material is provided.
The program started in Scarsdale in summer 2025 as a two-week camp for about twenty elementary students, run jointly with United Path's Arts & Care Program. That partnership raised over $6,000 for Westchester schools building STEM and art programs, children's hospitals, and youth organizations. In 2026 it moved to the Mount Vernon Public Library's Youth Community Outreach Program, three times longer and five times bigger.
Free, materials included, at the Mount Vernon Public Library.