Steve Bryant for The Herald Times: Summer camp for smart kids
July 19, 2017
Featured 'It's Your Business' Article for The Herald Times Summertime is here, and summer camps are in full swing across our region. Ivy Tech Community College and the South Central Small Business Development Center recently supported an innovative new STEM-focused summer camp at Westgate Academy near Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center, and it was awesome! STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math and is a core focus area for many educational institutions to encourage kids to learn skills that lead to employment in STEM-based careers. There are many educational programs and employment opportunities in STEM fields, and too many of those slots go unfilled. So, what do we do about it? Well, something as simple as putting together a summer camp to enhance STEM skills is one solution. Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center supports STEM programming year-round, and they have outreach and engagement staff dedicated to support many K-12 educational programs. The format was to bring kids in grades 7-10 for a weeklong program where they learn about technologies invented at Crane, form teams to focus on what else you can do with the inventions, work on product ideas, build prototypes and form a pitch to present to a panel of judges from Crane to evaluate their ideas. The participating kids came from schools in Bloomfield, Eastern Greene, Linton, Washington and other school systems. It was so exciting to see the unbelievable ideas the kids came up with for each invention, how they thought through the potential uses for the ideas, who would buy it and how much it would cost. One of Crane’s inventors was Skyped in from Afghanistan, and he was duly impressed with their innovative approaches to the new product ideas. Another inventor, a Crane engineer, served as a judge. He felt some of the ideas were ready to be moved forward immediately and encouraged the kids to go for it. The added element of the pitch competition was the icing on the cake to making the event challenging and fun. The kids did an excellent job of presenting their inventions to the judges and the parents who attended the event finale. They definitely showcased skills they can use as they progress through school and beyond. We love participating in these kinds of camp activities because it supports our mission to introduce people of all ages to entrepreneurial thinking and the processes that support it. We congratulate the kids, the Crane employees, the teachers and Westgate staff for making the experience a memorable and enjoyable one. Hopefully the kids will take what they have learned and will be inspired to do more in the STEM fields, and possibly start their own businesses in the future. We also hope they attend Ivy Tech. We offer in-demand STEM educational programs. You can learn more about degree offerings at www.ivytech.edu. Steve Bryant is executive director of the Gayle and Bill Cook Center for Entrepreneurship and regional director of the South Central Small Business Development Center. Next week, Alex Crowley, Bloomington director of the city Economic and Sustainable Development Department, will share his views.