For the third year in a row, ITAM held a Summer Camp for children in cooperation with Mad Science, a company that provides children with interactive experiences involving science and nature.
The Camp is divided into three, week-long courses. The topics this year were Physical Phenomena in Nature, Recharged Robotics, and Space and Beyond.
The children in the first course, Physical Phenomena in Nature, learned about and experimented with basic physics principles, such as the force of gravity, inertia, air pressure, magnetic fields and electricity, and on their own they were also able to find answers to their questions. Julieta, nine years old, said: “What most impressed me was electricity; there was a ball and you’d put your hands there and it made all your hair stick up.” Daniel, 10, agreed: “What I liked most was working with electricity.”
In the Recharged Robotics course held during the second week, youngsters learned about line-following robots, which were made with programmed microcontrollers. To build their own automaton, they used various materials, ranging from wheels and sensors to quartz crystals, diodes, direct current motors, resistors and transformers. Regarding the event, 7-year-old Regina said that what she liked above all were the activities. “My favorite part was when we made a light bulb come on.”
The last course, Space and Beyond, was devoted to teaching the children about space and the bodies that populate it. Through demonstrations, they learned about some of the key characteristics of the solar system components and the forces they exert or are subjected to in order to maintain equilibrium. In addition, they had the opportunity to learn about research and technology that arose as part of the study of the universe. Patricio, 8, talked about what he learned in the course: “I learned that Pluto is no longer a planet, and they talked to us about the planet that has the same features as planet Earth.” Juan, 8, was in both the Space and Robotics camps. “In the space camp, my favorite experiment was the one with the rocket; it was a rocket on which they put cookie wrappers and it would fly. And in the robots one, I made my own robot that followed black lines.”
All courses were given at the ITAM campus, and at the end of each course a Mad Science certificate of attendance was presented to the participants. For the Space and Beyond camp, an additional certificate from NASA was presented. The children had fun with this year’s scientific themes and the visits to the engineering labs. Miguel, 11, said: “I am going to study engineering at the ITAM when I grow up.”