Created by kids, for kids.
We promote creativity, resourcefulness, innovation, problem-solving, and leadership by engaging kids in design and engineering challenges throughout the summer. Our mission is to inspire the next generation of innovators, engineers, and entrepreneurs. Our programming supports this mission for kids from elementary school through high school.
The benefits of STEM education is widely understood. Fortunately, more and more children have access to STEM activities in a school setting every year. Too often though, the experience ends there. Many children don’t see themselves as future engineers, and don’t explore it actively outside of school. STEM is more than just science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. STEM encourages creativity, problem-solving, perseverance, and learning from others. These are essential life skills – regardless of someone’s ultimate path.
Our program focuses on outreach from kids, to kids. As far as our participants know, there are no adults involved. This makes the experience less intimidating and can help to spark an interest in STEM that our participants may not otherwise explore.
Challenge Participants
We encourage kids 12 and under to be innovative and creative through a series of fun engineering challenges. Our friendly competition allows kids to engage with, learn from, and celebrate each other throughout the summer.
We are open to anybody and everybody. We do not charge a fee to participate and all of our projects can be completed with basic household materials, and a little trial and error. We are very proud that our challenges are fully inclusive. Past participants and winners represent students from a wide variety of learning levels and backgrounds. Children are rewarded for attempting projects – regardless of whether or not they are the best. We believe any participation in STEM is good participation, and it should all be celebrated!
While our participants think they are playing, they are learning and applying the following skills: basic engineering, creativity, problem-solving, and perseverance. They are also learning valuable presentation skills. By viewing each other’s completed projects, students witness the power of diversity of thought and ideas, and show each other that there is more than one solution to every problem. Learn how it works
Junior Board of Engineers
Kids in 7th and 8th grades can apply to be part of our Junior Board of Engineers. The Junior Board works together throughout the school year to spread the word about Invent the Summer, design the challenges, write the rules and scripts, and perform in the videos. They are learning about: teamwork, time management, marketing, and public speaking. Learn more.
Senior Board of Engineers
Our Senior Board of Engineers are high school students who have previously served on the Junior Board. These kids serve as mentors to the Junior Board. They lead our meetings, write our video scripts, and create the storyboards. They serve as our video directors, camera people, and producers. These students also design our graphics, manage our social media, and work on our marketing efforts. They are getting real world experience into what it takes to lead a team, create a product, and market it to the world.
Other Student Participants
We take “by kids, for kids” very seriously and actively seek opportunities to engage students in our program, regardless of whether or not they are participants or members of the board.
All of the music in our videos was composed and produced by a high school student. We have also coordinated with our local high school to engage current computer science students in various programming projects to help streamline our contest entry process. These opportunities allow students to explore new skills that are not currently taught in school, and apply them in a very real-world situation.