STEAM Lab is an opportunity for our Elementary aged student to explore STEAM through projects, experiments, and tinkering. Both in small groups and individually, students will work on designing and building, programming and predicting, hypothesizing and observing, and making connections between what happens in class and how things work in the world. This class is hands on, with different STEAM invitations presented each week.

Use LEGO to practice building stories! Students will use the unique set of inspiring bricks and pieces that comprise the LEGO Story Starter curriculum, along with exciting prompts and backgrounds, to polish their story telling skills. Once their build is complete, they will photograph the scenes they have created and use these photos to illustrate comics or graphic novels. The possibilities are endless! We can’t wait to hear the stories they tell!

We are so excited to get started with Odyssey of the Mind again this year!

OM is a creative problem solving competition. The students choose from 5 long-term problems, and prepare their solution in advance, which they must present through a skit or similar performance. Additionally, teams compete together in a spontaneous problem solving challenge that is not announced beforehand. OM teams display out of this world creativity, pun perfection, and spendiferous crafting, costuming, and construction skills! Humor and outright hilarity are encouraged throughout the OM organization, from silly chants and rhymes to mirthful millenery.

IfSpace plans to host 5 Odyssey of the Mind teams this year. Students are sorted by age, with a maximum of 7 and a minimum of 5 students per team. One of our 5 teams will perform in the Primary division, which is non-competitive, expo-only. The other 5 teams will choose from the list of 5 long-terms problems after we have sorted our 2017 participants by age and schedule availability. The oldest participant on each team determines the level at which the whole team competes, so it’s important to try to keep the teams similar in age! Our 2016 teams scored very well at the Space Coast competition, and our Division III team advanced to state competition at UCF!

If you register for OM, please select the time that is most ideal for you, and include any additional information regarding your schedule preferences in the comments or send me an email at odyssey@ifspace.org.

More About Odyssey of the Mind Here

Read the 2017 Problem Synopses Here

In Tinkering, students explore materials, supplies, tools and concepts in an open-ended, adult-guided way. Past Tinkering sessions have involved making custom Minecraft controllers with Makey Makey, exploring linkage mechanisms with cardboard and brads, testing out paper circuits to make light-up cards and pictures, taking apart consumer electronics and toys to see what’s inside, and a multi-week construction of an elaborate Rube Goldberg device. Tinkering is where we try out new ideas as a group, and encourage one another as we try to get our thing to work.

This special tinkering course is tailored for a younger audience including children who are still developing their fine-motor skills.

Use LEGO WeDo 2.0 to build LEGO creations that move! Students will have an opportunity to practice science, engineering, building and coding skills, all while using familiar LEGO pieces and software.