Gillette College Area 59

Our first Fun Friday class is complete! 🎉 Participants learned how to use laser engraving technology to create personalized water bottles featuring custom names, logos, and designs. The results were incredible, and every bottle was uniquely their own. Great work, everyone!

📸 We’re giving Instagram a try!

Area 59 has officially launched an Instagram account as another way to share the projects, creativity, technology, classes, and behind-the-scenes moments happening in the makerspace. From lasers and robotics to welding, drones, stickers, and student creations, we’ll be sharing a little bit of everything.

If you enjoy seeing what our community is building, creating, and learning, come follow along as we figure this whole Instagram thing out. 😄

https://www.instagram.com/gcarea59/

🚁 Mission accomplished.

Our drone pilots are putting their skills to the test and completing flight missions today! From pre-flight checks to precision flying, they are learning focus, responsibility, and confidence in the air. Every flight builds problem-solving skills, spatial awareness, and real-world STEM experience.

The future is taking off at STEM Achievers. ✈️

Today in STEM Achievers, our Coding & Robotics students are discovering that drones are more than flying gadgets. They're programmable robots! 🚁💻

Using block-based coding, students are creating sequences of commands that tell drones exactly what to do. Every takeoff, turn, hover, and landing requires careful planning, testing, and problem-solving. When something doesn't work as expected, students analyze their code, make adjustments, and try again, just like real engineers and programmers.

Activities like drone coding help students develop computational thinking, persistence, creativity, and teamwork while seeing their code come to life in the real world. There's something exciting about watching a drone successfully complete a mission that you programmed yourself!

Today's lesson is a great reminder that coding isn't just happening on a screen. It's controlling robots, solving problems, and building the skills that power many of the technologies we use every day.

This morning's STEM Achievers challenge started with a Magic Ring puzzle and Houdini's Handcuffs. At first, they looked impossible. Some students wanted to quit, others tried the same strategy over and over, and a few immediately started working together.
By the end, the puzzles taught us much more than how to catch a ring or escape a string.

🔹 Perseverance – When something doesn't work the first time, keep trying. Many of the students who solved the puzzle succeeded because they refused to give up.

🔹 Communication – The best solutions often came from partners talking through ideas, sharing observations, and helping each other see the problem from a different angle.

🔹 Laughter – Sometimes learning looks like serious problem solving, and sometimes it looks like a room full of kids laughing at their failed attempts. Both are important. When students feel comfortable making mistakes, they're more willing to take risks and learn.

A simple puzzle became a lesson in teamwork, resilience, and having fun while tackling a challenge. That's a pretty great way to start the day at STEM Achievers!

Screen time isn't the only thing happening at STEM Achievers!
While our students spend time exploring exciting technologies like robotics, AI, immersive media, and design tools, some of the most important learning happens when the screens are turned off.

Each morning and afternoon, campers participate in team-building activities, communication challenges, and collaborative problem-solving tasks designed to strengthen the skills that power innovation. Through these hands-on experiences, students practice working together, listening to different perspectives, thinking critically, adapting to challenges, and communicating effectively with their teammates.

Whether they're solving a silent communication challenge, tackling a creative engineering task, or reflecting on the day's successes and setbacks, students are building the essential human skills that technology can never replace.

At STEM Achievers, we believe the future belongs to people who can not only use technology, but also collaborate, communicate, and solve problems together.

Students in our Immersive Media class stepped into the world of virtual robotics today using Kai's Education Kai’s Lab. Through interactive challenges, they explored coding, problem-solving, and computational thinking while testing their ideas in a virtual environment before applying them to real-world technology.
Experiences like this help students develop the skills needed for future careers in technology, engineering, and innovation—all while having fun and learning through hands-on exploration.

At STEM Achievers @ Gillette College, we love giving students opportunities to create, experiment, and discover what's possible when imagination meets technology!