STEM Seminars Open Doors to Exploration and Creativity for Grade 10 Students

On Thursday, May 22, Rivers welcomed faculty and guests to Revers for the final presentations of the STEM Seminar program. Students presented their projects science-fair style, with visitors circulating in rounds, engaging in thoughtful conversations about the students’ projects. The aim? To give students the invaluable experience of communicating their work to people in an informal manner, generating dialogue and reflection.

Launched this fall, the STEM Seminar program is a forward-thinking initiative designed to give sophomore students early access to specialized courses in engineering, data science, computer science, or robotics. Meeting once a week for a long block, the seminars operate on a pass-fail basis and focus heavily on hands-on, exploratory learning. “It allows the students to get their feet wet and be exposed to STEM concepts at an earlier stage, before their schedules fill up with AP courses in junior and senior years,” explained science faculty and robotics coordinator Yoshi Fujita, who teaches the seminar on robotics and taught an engineering seminar in the fall.. 

In engineering, students learned how to bring a concept to life and solve problems through the design process: define a goal, determine solutions, figure out how geometry can help, and build using computer-aided design (CAD) software. “Even something as simple as a phone stand becomes complex when you get started,” said Fujita. “Will it support the phone in both portrait and landscape? What happens if you touch the screen?”

“It’s creativity within technical constraints,” said Fujita, highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of STEM overall—a combination of mathematics, technology, and creativity. With access to four 3D printers on the second floor of The Revers Center—now used daily across robotics, engineering, and beyond—students are encouraged to be innovative and to work at the intersection of multiple disciplines. Chelsea Yan ’25, for example, used the printers and a laser cutter machine to create trophy-like objects in the shapes of musical instruments and symbols for the classical music teachers as thank-you gifts.

In the engineering seminar, led by science faculty members Laura Nicholson and Stewart Pierson, students worked with professional design software and 3D printers to plan and print their creations. Projects ranged from custom phone stands to fully functioning lockboxes with moving parts. “It was great to have a low-stakes science course,” said Pierson, referring to the program’s pass/fail grading basis. “The students could pursue their interests in designing whatever they wanted. It was gratifying to see them put in a lot of work out of simple enthusiasm, not for the grade!”

In Michael Schlenker’s computer science seminar, students tackled “Monte Carlo simulations,” a computational technique that uses random sampling to model probability and analyze systems to understand the impact of risk and uncertainty. Topics ranged from simulating tic-tac-toe strategies to analyzing Rubik’s Cube solving patterns.

Meanwhile, John Adams, director of technology and innovation, led the data science seminar, where students interpreted real-world data through statistical modeling. Students wrote and interpreted R code in RStudio, then presented their Quarto presentations, which essentially used hundreds of lines of code to uncover stories hidden within the data students generated. These stories came to life via the data visualizations and statistics they generated and displayed in their presentations. 

“It was fascinating to learn how things are designed,” said Jack Burkhead ’27, reflecting on his engineering seminar, where he designed and printed a 3D spring-hinge lockbox. “I spent 80% of my time just measuring and adjusting dimensions—it is a challenging process to get that perfect thing you want.” Though he admitted his creation isn’t necessarily better than commercial products, Burkhead was proud: “It’s not perfect, but I did design it myself. I am happy with it.”