Build, Create and Play with STEAM!
We’ve kicked off the Best Summer Ever with our Y camps and programs that provide our youth with the opportunities and spaces to learn, enjoy and make lifelong friendships. While summer is in full swing, we recently held our 9th Annual Thingamajig Invention Convention on Friday, June 30, 2023, at the San Francisco County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park.
Thingamajig is a USPTO-patented Science Fair & Engineering Expo in which our youth get to attend and participate. It offers more than a dozen hands-on exhibits, challenges and experiments designed to spark curiosity and showcase kids’ S.T.E.A.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) skills while they have fun building or simply designing new inventions. While most of our youth went from table to table engaging with the S.T.E.A.M. activities we had, some of our youth entered the Thingamajig Invention competition where their imagination, creativity and teamwork came together to make a project that would be picked to win S.T.E.A.M. education prizes.
Here are some of our youth who participated in the competition with their projects and shared what they enjoy the most about Thingamajig:
What is your project and what made you choose to build this?
It's our dream bedroom. We chose to build this because we just incorporated a bunch of things that we would want in an actual bedroom.
How was building it and putting the project together?
It was fun and difficult. It was difficult because like sometimes when we use the hot glue gun to glue it, it sometimes comes off, so you have to like re-glue it and then it takes some time.
What do you like the most about Thingamajig?
I really like the different projects and giving kids the opportunity to build their own science inventions.
-Hailey, Leah and Ashely, 7th grade, MLK Beacon Summer Legacy, Bayview YMCA
What project did you make?
We made a helicopter and the name of it is Craftocoptor.
Why do you like Thingamajig? What are you excited about when it comes to S.T.E.A.M. education?
I love building stuff.
-Jordan and Brandon, 7th grade, MLK Beacon Summer Legacy, Bayview YMCA
Thank you to all our staff, volunteers and board members as well as our President and CEO Jamie Bruning-Miles, our sponsors, Franklin Templeton, Waymo, VMOAIR, PwC, and our community partners, Exploratorium and Mission Science Workshop, for your support in making this event happen for our youth. To learn more about our Y summer camps and programs, visit www.ymcasf.org/summer. To learn more about our STEAM Academy program, visit www.ymcasf.org/initiatives/science-technology-engineering-arts-math or contact Maybelle Miranda @mmiranda@ymcasf.org.
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