CANFIELD, Ohio – St. Charles School eighth grader Liam Bonomo has always been interested in making things.
So this week’s science, technology, engineering and math camp at Mahoning County Career & Technical Center and Valley STEM+ME2 Academy appealed to him as a fun way to spend three days of his summer break.
“I’ve always been interested in doing a bunch of different stuff,” Liam said. “Then I heard that it’s kind of like a smorgasbord of electricity, STEM, printing, making your own stuff. I’m a big connoisseur of being able to make my own stuff.”
He’s one of 55 sixth through eighth graders who signed up for the three-day camp, which rotates campers through several STEM areas at two-hour intervals.
Tuesday morning, Liam was among those working on electricity.
“We’re fusing together electrical wires,” he explained. “We’re stripping down the wire. We’re connecting them and then we’re also making an LED circuit board, where, if you got to connect all the wires together – you’ve got to do it perfectly – and then some of the LED lights will light up, and it’s just a really fun experience.”
Michael Lopuchovsky, a Valley STEM+ME2 Academy teacher, said the camp introduces the middle schoolers to different technologies and skills, exposing them to various careers. It provides an introduction to the world of STEM and what it entails in terms of skills, equipment and abilities, he added.
In one room, students worked on soldering, learning about electrical components.
“In the labs, they’re working on anything from operating a robot to programming a robot to running a CNC mill, CNC router, a water jet, laser engraver – a lot of things that we think exposure to early kind of eliminates that fear from kids where, oh, that’s a loud machine or a big machine or expensive machine, and I’m afraid to run it,” he said.
Getting their hands on the equipment and working with the software behind it eliminates that fear.
The activities are designed to be fun, Lopuchovsky said.
“But the other thing is, at Valley STEM, we’ve worked with a lot of different industries to see what jobs are they creating, what jobs are they lacking people for, and what do they think just kids should be exposed to,” the teacher said.
It also exposes students to the types of careers available.
Struthers Middle School sixth grader Rylie Neapolitan doesn’t know what she wants to do as a career. Doctor, teacher and baker are among her considerations.
But she likes STEM too.
“My brother and my older sisters went here, and [my brother] came home with a bunch of cool stuff that I was excited to do,” Rylie said. “And so when my mom asked me if I was ready to go to the STEM program, I told her yes, because I was really excited to do this fun stuff.”
Liam hasn’t decided on a career path either. Graphic design and starting his own food business are two options.
The camp piqued his interest in STEM careers.
“Seeing that I could get into wiring, a manufacturer, engineering – there’s a bunch of different career paths that we go down that MCCTC opened up. It’s a very, very good experience.”
Last week’s camp focused on career exploration, with students focusing on one field for the camp’s duration.
Each camp, which costs $40 and includes breakfast, lunch, a T-shirt, goodie bag and the labs, has been going on for several years, and some participants enroll at MCCTC or Valley STEM for high school.
“Especially as a teacher, I think you always hope a kid goes home with a little bit of a spark,” Lopuchovsky said.
That may be interest in one of the areas they learned about that leads them to enroll at Valley STEM and to a related career.
The students huddled around their equipment, engrossed in their work.
“That’s the whole point of the career center and STEM, is kids are engaged when you give them a chance to be engaged, when they’re working with things, when they’re building things, when they’re touching things and putting things together,” Lopuchovsky said.
Pictured at top: Valley STEM+ME Academy teacher Michael Lopuchovsky helps Struthers Middle School sixth grader Rylie Neapolitan at STEM camp Tuesday.