Transform Your Future: Engineers Week 2026
Community Day: Saturday, Feb. 21
Innovative Technologies Complex, Binghamton University
Sponsored by Watson College Dean's Office and Watson Career and Alumni Connections
In celebration of National Engineers Week, Watson College will host our annual Community Day event for children and their families. These fun, hands-on STEM activities are free and open to all ages!
- Morning session: 9:30 a.m.-12 p.m. [REGISTRATION CLOSED]
- Afternoon session: 1-3:30 p.m. [REGISTRATION CLOSED]
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Morning Session
Alka-Seltzer Activated Lava Lamps
Watson College Scholars Program
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Center of Excellence (side closer to revolving doors)
Want to see a chemical reaction in which carbon dioxide is produced? Create your own lamps where bubbles of CO2 float and sink! Choose your favorite color and watch it glow in the dark.Amateur Radio
Watson Amateur Radio Club
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: ES hallway between rooms ES 2303 and ES 2100 (second floor, above check-in tables)
Amateur radio — also known as ham radio — communicates across the street, around the world or even with people and satellites in space! Even when the power's out and the landlines and cell phones don't work, ham radio is there with a battery, a radio and a wire. Ham radio lets us make lifelong friends and offers a hands-on technical education. It provides the resources and encouragement to experiment and to design and build with the latest communications technologies.Arduino Project Demonstrations
Engineering Design Division (EDD) - First-Year Engineering Program
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: Rotunda (approaching Center of Excellence linking hallway)
Investigate interactive projects built by our student teams using Arduino, an open-source prototyping platform. Projects include Horse Race, Reaction Time Tester and Maze Runner.Balloon Hovercraft
Tau Beta Pi
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: ES 2001 (2nd floor study room)
Create a hovercraft using a balloon, bottle cap and paper plate or CD. Watch as the air from the balloon allows your device to hover off the ground!Binary Bracelet Design
Girls Who Code
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Hallway in front of ES 1414 (in connector hallway, across from bathroom)
Create a beaded bracelet with a secret message using binary code! Make something stylish while learning how computers turn letters into computer-readable code. Students will be encouraged to be creative while learning one of the most fundamental aspects of computer programming!
Blast Off with Bottle Rockets
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: Rotunda (approaching Center of Excellence linking hallway)
How high can you go? Turn an ordinary plastic bottle into a gravity-defying machine! Learn the secrets of aerodynamics to build the perfect rocket, then strap it to our launch pad and pull the trigger. Watch your creation blast into the air. Come for the science, stay for the splash!Boat Float Challenge
Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering (IISE)
Age group: Elementary school
Location: Center of Excellence hallway (by diagonal stairs)
Design and construct a tinfoil boat capable of carrying a domino load across the water! Both the design of the boat and the placement of the dominoes will affect the boat's performance. How many dominoes can your boat hold? You will be rewarded with candy based on how many dominoes your boat can carry!Bridge Bust Challenge
American Society for Quality (ASQ)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: Center of Excellence Hallway
In this fast-paced engineering challenge, you’ll design and build a bridge using simple materials like straws, spaghetti and tape to span a “river” between two platforms. Then comes the best part: the stress test! We’ll add weight one step at a time until your bridge finally gives out. Try different shapes, strengthen weak spots and redesign it to beat your own record. Build, test, improve — and see how real engineers create structures that are strong, smart and safe!Bucket Tower
Watson College Scholars Program
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Rotunda (approaching Center of Excellence linking hallway)
Be the tallest, strongest tower of the day using just straw, tape and string! Compete for a chance to create the best tower and win a mystery reward! You’ll learn about gravity, stability, structural stress and strain, and force.Build a Robot Hand
Alpha Omega Epsilon (AOE)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: ES 2001 (2nd floor study room)
Design a movable robot hand using simple materials, then see how many objects you can pick up and move. Try out different finger designs, discover what makes a good grabber and watch your creation come to life!Build Your Own Cycloidal Gearbox
Binghamton University Rover Team
Age groups: Middle school, high school
Location: Rotunda
Assemble and take home a functional scale model of our custom cycloidal gearboxes. See them in use on our Rover’s robotic arm!Cell Membrane Bubble Lab
Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Hallway outside of ES 2300 (second floor, above check-in tables)
Use soap bubbles to model how cell membranes can divide and fuse, and how they allow selective permeability. Get ready to get your hands soapy and see who can make the biggest bubble “cell”!Changing our World with Liquid Nitrogen
Materials Research Society
Age groups: Middle school, high school
Location: ES 2008E (second floor, next to Egg Drop)
We will be demonstrating how we can use liquid nitrogen to harden rubber, create liquid air and even how to use a banana as a hammer!Circuitry Circus
ColorStack
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Rotunda
Step right up to a world where circuits come alive!Use Snap Circuits to build glowing lights, buzzing gadgets and fun creations of your own design. Invent, experiment and let your imagination run the show!Control a Robot With Your Brain
Mechanical Engineering Department - Professor JianZhou
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: Hallway near ES 1100 (close to check-in tables)
Wear sticker electrodes on your body and use your brainpower to control a robotic arm. No buttons or joysticks needed!Custom Paper Planes & Drone Pilot School
Binghamton Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (BUAV)
Age groups: Middle school, high school
Location: Center of Excellence Hallway (at end of hallway, down the stairs alongside the windows)
Make paper-based RC planes that can be controlled with your phone. Also, learn to use a drone transmitter to control your drone on screen!DIY Hexbugs
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Center of Excellence hallway
Design your own robotic bug that you’ll get to race on a track! To assemble your bug, you will be given a motor, a battery, pipe cleaners and a base forthe bugs.
Drawing Electronics: Engineering Ignited
Mechanical Engineering Department - Professor Pu Zhang
Age groups: Middle school, high school
Location: ES 1304 (classroom in front of check-in)
Jump into electronics by inventing your own creations from scratch! Use a silver ink pen to draw circuits on paper and watch them come to life with lights and switches. With guidance and simple components like batteries, LEDs and switches, you’ll learn how electronics work — and have fun bringing your ideas to life!Egg Drop
Pi Tau Sigma - Mechanical Engineering Honor Society
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: ES 2008W (design device), balcony outside of classroom (egg drop)
Can you keep your egg from cracking when it's dropped off a tall balcony? In this fun physics challenge, you will use creativity and engineering to design a device that protects your egg from breaking!
Egg drop release times: 10:15, 11 and 11:45 a.m.Electromagnetic Silent Disco
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department (Professor Scott Craver)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: ES 2303 (Media Core Lab, second floor, above check-in tables)
Our dance floor uses electromagnetic fields instead of sound! Wind a loop of wire and attach it to a pair of earbuds so that you can hear the music when you hop on the dance floor. We'll show you some moves that illustrate how the fields work.Elephant Toothpaste Explosion
Out in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (oSTEM)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: Center of Excellence hallway (side closer to revolving doors)
Get ready for a foamy, bubbly eruption that looks like a giant tube of toothpaste exploding! In this hands-on activity, you’ll mix special ingredients to create a chemical reaction that shoots out colorful foam right before your eyes. It’s messy, magical and full of science fun!
Demo times: 10:30 and 11:30 a.m. (in the courtyard outside of Rotunda where bottle rockets are released)Get in Gear
Theta Tau (professional engineering fraternity)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: Across from ES 1304 (near diagonal stairs)
Ever wonder how cars go so fast? It's all in the gears! Build your own mini-car and learn about how gears help it to gain speed.Hat-Making
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Across from ES 1304 (near diagonal stairs)
Can you help us craft a paper hat? You'll have instructions with images, but we won’t be able to see them. We’ll need you to guide us step by step! Help us properly make some hats and get some candy to take home. Decorate the hat with markers and colored pencils after!Ignition Technician School & Rocket Motor Assembly Race
AeroBing
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Symposium Hall
Create an electronic match — a simplified version of the one we use to ignite our rockets for testing and launching — and test the match's integrity (safety glasses provided). Participants will strip wire and use pliers to craft the perfect e-match!Magnetic Slime in Motion
Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Rotunda
Using magnets, you can pull, stretch and move special slime that contains magnetic fibers. Watch as it twists and crawls in response to your movements, showing how science can transform ordinary materials into something extraordinary.MagniMaze
StackHacks
Age group: Elementary school
Location: Outside of ES 2001 (second floor, above check-in tables)Design, build and test your own marble run using magnetic blocks! Snap pieces together to create twisting tracks, crazy curves and epic drops. Send your marble racing through your custom creation — if it crashes, rebuild it even better! Work solo or team up with friends to engineer the coolest track possible. Will your design make it from start to finish?
Marble Roller Coaster
Theme Park Engineering and Design Club (TPED)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Center of Excellence linking hallway
Build your own marble roller coaster using tracks, supports and creative materials. Experiment, rebuild and challenge yourself to create the most exciting ride with twists, turns, height and your own personal theme. Can you design the ultimate marble thrill ride? Visit the Theme Park Engineering and Design station to find out!Mario Party
Watson Combat Robotics League (WCRL)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Rotunda
Take control of a battle robot and try to pop the balloons attached to other bots before they pop yours. Dodge, spin and attack in this fast-paced balloon-popping competition. Find out how long your robot will survive!Marshmallow Tower
Watson College Scholars Program
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Rotunda
Build the tallest tower using sticks and put a marshmallow on top to learn about structural integrity and stability!Newton's Color Wheel
National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE)
Age groups: Elementary school
Location: Center of Excellence linking hallway
Create a colorful spinner and watch what happens when you spin it super-fast! Will your colors stay separate or mix into one? Test the science of motion and color with your own hands!Pinwheel Creation
Roberson Museum and Science Center
Age groups: Elementary school
Location: ES Building second floor - balcony near elevator (above check-in tables)
Make your own pinwheel as you learn how massive turbines turn wind into energy.Pom-Pom Poppers
American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Center of Excellence hallway
Ready, aim, fire! Using simple materials like plastic cups and balloons, build a device to launch pom-poms into the air and hit the targets! Can you build the best pom-pom popper?Popsicle Stick Catapult
Women in Tech
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Hallway outside of ES 2300 (second floor, above check-in tables)
Get ready to launch into engineering fun! Build and decorate your own mini-catapult using popsicle sticks, rubber bands and a bottle-cap launcher! Test out lever-based force by experimenting with angles and designs to see how far you can launch a construction-paper ball.Race Day Rally
Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)
Age groups: Middle school, high school
Location: Center of Excellence hallway (end of hallway by doors)
Get ready for a Pinewood Derby with a science twist! Race your car down the track, time your run and use the track length to calculate how fast your car really went. Plus, try out the racing simulator and see how real engineers test speed and performance.Solid or Liquid? The Oobleck Mystery
Society of Women Engineers (SWE)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Hallway in front of ES 1414 (in hallway across from bathroom)
Meet the strange slime that acts like both a solid and a liquid: Oobleck, non-Newtonian fluid! Learn how to make oobleck, play with it and observe how it behaves differently depending on how you touch it.VR Health Quest: Save Your Lungs, Save the Day
School of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering - HPHACTORS Lab - Professor Safa Elkefi
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: Symposium Hall
Put on a VR headset and step into an exciting virtual world where you become a Health Hero on a mission! In this interactive experience, you’ll explore what happens inside the body, learn how smoking affects the lungs and discover how technology helps support people with cancer and other illnesses. You’ll see how doctors and scientists use virtual reality to teach, comfort and help people make healthier choices.Water Puzzles
Mechanical Engineering Department
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: ES 1304
Explore the magic of a water surface by building shapes from 3D-printed building blocks.Wind-Powered Cars
Watson College Scholars Program
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: Outside of ES 2001 (2nd floor, above check-in tables)
Students will design gliding or sailboat-like cars and put them to the test! Creativity is encouraged, and you can win candy. -
Afternoon Session
3D Printing Live Demo
Professor Fuda Ning and Research Group
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: Hallway near ES 1100 (close to check-in tables)
Learn about 3D printing - also known as additive manufacturing - by watching state-of-the-art printers. Also, see samples of the cool things that we have printed in our lab!Amateur Radio
Watson Amateur Radio Club
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: Hallway between rooms ES 2303 and ES 2100 (second floor, above check-in tables)
Amateur radio — also known as ham radio — communicates across the street, around the world or even with people and satellites in space! Even when the power's out and the landlines and cell phones don't work, ham radio is there with a battery, a radio and a wire. Ham radio lets us make lifelong friends and offers a hands-on technical education. It provides the resources and encouragement to experiment and to design and build with the latest communications technologies.Arduino Project Demonstrations
Engineering Design Division (EDD) - First-Year Engineering Program
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: Rotunda (approaching Center of Excellence linking hallway)
Investigate interactive projects built by our student teams using Arduino, an open-source prototyping platform. Projects include Horse Race, Reaction Time Tester and Maze Runner.Balloon Hovercraft
Tau Beta Pi
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: ES 2001 (second floor study room)
Create a hovercraft using a balloon, bottle cap and paper plate or CD! Watch as the air from the balloon allows your device to hover off of the ground!Binary Bracelet Design
Girls Who Code
Age groups: Elementary School, Middle School
Location: Hallway in front of ES 1414 (in connector hallway across from bathroom)
Create a beaded bracelet with a secret message using binary code! Make something stylish while learning how computers turn letters into computer-readable code. Students will be encouraged to be creative while learning one of the most fundamental aspects of computer programming!Blast Off with Bottle Rockets
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: Rotunda (approaching Center of Excellence linking hallway)
How high can you go? Turn an ordinary plastic bottle into a gravity-defying machine! Learn the secrets of aerodynamics to build the perfect rocket, then strap it to our launch pad and pull the trigger. Watch your creation blast into the air. Come for the science, stay for the splash!Boat Float Challenge
Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering (IISE)
Age group: Elementary school
Location: Center of Excellence hallway (by diagonal stairs)
Design and construct a tinfoil boat capable of carrying a domino load across the water! Both the design of the boat and the placement of the dominoes will affect the boat's performance. How many dominoes can your boat hold? You will be rewarded with candy based on how many dominoes your boat can carry!Bridge Bust Challenge
American Society for Quality (ASQ)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: Center of Excellence hallway
In this fast-paced engineering challenge, you’ll design and build a bridge using simple materials like straws, spaghetti and tape to span a “river” between two platforms. Then comes the best part: the stress test! We’ll add weight one step at a time until your bridge finally gives out. Try different shapes, strengthen weak spots and redesign it to beat your own record. Build, test, improve — and see how real engineers create structures that are strong, smart and safe!Build a Robot Hand
Alpha Omega Epsilon (AOE)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: ES 2001 (second floor study room)
Design a movable robot hand using simple materials, then see how many objects you can pick up and move. Try out different finger designs, discover what makes a good grabber and watch your creation come to life!Build Your Own Cycloidal Gearbox
Binghamton University Rover Team
Age groups: Middle school, high school
Location: Rotunda
Assemble and take home a functional scale model of our custom cycloidal gearboxes. See them in use on our Rover’s robotic arm!Cell Membrane Bubble Lab
Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Hallway outside of ES 2300 (second floor, above check-in tables)
Use soap bubbles to model how cell membranes can divide and fuse, and how they allow selective permeability. Get ready to get your hands soapy and see who can make the biggest bubble “cell”!Changing Our World with Liquid Nitrogen
Materials Research Society
Age groups: Middle school, high school
Location: ES 2008E (second floor, next to Egg Drop)
We will be demonstrating how we can use liquid nitrogen to harden rubber, create liquid air and even how to use a banana as a hammer!Circuitry Circus
ColorStack
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Rotunda
Step right up to a world where circuits come alive! Use Snap Circuits to build glowing lights, buzzing gadgets and fun creations of your own design. Invent, experiment and let your imagination run the show!Control a Robot With Your Brain
Mechanical Engineering Department - Professor Jian Zhou
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: Hallway near ES 1100 (close to check-in tables)
Wear sticker electrodes on your body and use your brainpower to control a robotic arm. No buttons or joysticks needed!Custom Paper Planes & Drone Pilot School
Binghamton Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (BUAV)
Age groups: Middle school, high school
Location: Center of Excellence Hallway (at end of hallway, down the stairs alongside the windows)
We’ll be making paper-based RC planes that can be controlled with your phone. We will also have a station where you can learn to use a drone transmitter to control your drone on screen!DIY Hexbugs
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Center of Excellence hallway
Design your own robotic bug that you’ll get to race on a track! To assemble your bug, you will be given a motor, a battery, pipe cleaners and a base for the bugs.DIY Terrarium: Create Your Own Mini Green World
Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: Rotunda
Dive into the world of plants and ecosystems by building your very own mini-terrarium! Using clear jars or bottles, we’ll create tiny, self-sustaining environments full of green plants, cool decorations and natural beauty. It’s like making your very own little jungle in a jar!
Egg Drop
Pi Tau Sigma - Mechanical Engineering Honor Society
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: ES 2008W (design device), balcony outside of classroom (egg drop)
Can you keep your egg from cracking when it's dropped off a tall balcony? In this fun physics challenge, you will use creativity and engineering to design a device that protects your egg from breaking!
Egg drop release times: 1:45, 2:30 and 3:15 p.m.Electromagnetic Silent Disco
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department (Professor Scott Craver)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: ES 2303 (Media Core Lab, second floor, above check-in tables)
Our dance floor uses electromagnetic fields instead of sound! Wind a loop of wire and attach it to a pair of earbuds so that you can hear the music when you hop on the dance floor. We'll show you some moves that illustrate how the fields work.Elephant Toothpaste Explosion
Out in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (oSTEM)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: Center of Excellence hallway (side closer to revolving doors)
Get ready for a foamy, bubbly eruption that looks like a giant tube of toothpaste exploding! In this hands-on activity, you’ll mix special ingredients to create a chemical reaction that shoots out colorful foam right before your eyes. It’s messy, magical and full of science fun!
Demo times: 2 and 3 p.m. (in the courtyard outside of Rotunda where bottle rockets are released)Get in Gear
Theta Tau (professional engineering fraternity)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: Across from ES 1304 (near diagonal stairs)
Ever wonder how cars go so fast? It's all in the gears! Build your own mini-car and learn about how gears help it to gain speed.Hat-Making
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Across from ES 1304 (near diagonal stairs)
Can you help us craft a paper hat? You'll have instructions with images, but we won’t be able to see them. We’ll need you to guide us step by step! Help us properly make some hats and get some candy to take home. Decorate the hat with markers and colored pencils after!Ignition Technician School & Rocket Motor Assembly Race
AeroBing
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Symposium Hall
Create an electronic match — a simplified version of the one we use to ignite our rockets for testing and launching — and test the match's integrity (safety glasses provided). Participants will strip wire and use pliers to craft the perfect e-match!Lights, Circuits, Action! Microelectronics and Hacking Secrets with Raspberry Pi & Arduino
Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity - Professor Ping Yang
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: ES 1304 (classroom in front of check-in)
Explore various electronic and microelectronic components and their functions, understand how Raspberry Pi and Arduino operate, and compare the differences! Experiment with plug-and-play microelectronic modules to observe how changing components affects the outcome. Plus, learn how encryption and decryption work, and explore how side-channel and covert channel attacks can uncover sensitive information through a password-guessing game.Magnetic Slime in Motion
Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Rotunda
Using magnets, you can pull, stretch and move special slime that contains magnetic fibers. Watch as it twists and crawls in response to your movements, showing how science can transform ordinary materials into something extraordinary.MagniMaze
StackHacks
Age group: Elementary school
Location: Outside of ES 2001 (second floor, above check-in tables)
Design, build and test your own marble run using magnetic blocks! Snap pieces together to create twisting tracks, crazy curves and epic drops. Send your marble racing through your custom creation — if it crashes, rebuild it even better! Work solo or team up with friends to engineer the coolest track possible. Will your design make it from start to finish?Marble Roller Coaster
Theme Park Engineering and Design Club (TPED)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Center of Excellence linking hallway
Build your own marble roller coaster using tracks, supports and creative materials. Experiment, rebuild and challenge yourself to create the most exciting ride with twists, turns, height and your own personal theme. Can you design the ultimate marble thrill ride? Visit the Theme Park Engineering and Design station to find out!Mario Party
Watson Combat Robotics League (WCRL)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Rotunda
Take control of a battle robot and try to pop the balloons attached to other bots before they pop yours. Dodge, spin and attack in this fast-paced balloon-popping competition. Find out how long your robot will survive!Marshmallow Tower
P-TECH
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Rotunda
Build the tallest tower using sticks and put a marshmallow on top to learn about structural integrity and stability!Micro-Nano Adventures
Mechanical Engineering Department, Professor Kaiyan Yu
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: ES 1304
Step into the world of tiny robots and invisible forces! In this hands-on activity, you’ll become a micro-robot controller and guide tiny magnetic particles as they swim through a special liquid called ferrofluid. Using a tablet-controlled machine built by engineers, you’ll turn electromagnets on and off to create swirling patterns, lines and shapes. Watch as microscopic particles move, gather and dance — almost like magic — by changing the strength and direction of magnetic fields. This is how scientists and engineers learn to control tiny machines that could one day help with medicine, environmental cleanup and advanced manufacturing. Get ready to explore, experiment and have fun in the micro-nano world!Minecraft Coding Demo
HackBU
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Symposium Hall
In this Minecraft-themed coding challenge, you’ll guide a character using basic commands to solve puzzles and avoid obstacles. See how computers follow instructions step by step for a fun first taste of programming!Newton's Color Wheel
National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE)
Age groups: Elementary school
Location: Center of Excellence linking hallway
Create a colorful spinner and watch what happens when you spin it super-fast! Will your colors stay separate or mix into one? Test the science of motion and color with your own hands!Parachute Power
Binghamton Scientista
Age group: Elementary school
Location: Rotunda (approaching Center of Excellence linking hallway)Build three different parachutes and see how quickly your toys fall! You can build a parachute using different materials, shapes and sizes to see if it changes how quickly your toy reaches the ground.
Pinwheel Creation
Roberson Museum and Science Center
Age groups: Elementary school
Location: ES Building second floor - balcony near elevator (above check-in tables)
Make your own pinwheel as you learn how massive turbines turn wind into energy.Pom-Pom Poppers
American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Center of Excellence hallway
Ready, aim, fire! Using simple materials like plastic cups and balloons, build a device to launch pom-poms into the air and hit the targets! Can you build the best pom-pom popper?
Popsicle Stick Catapult
Women in Tech
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Hallway outside of ES 2300 (second floor, above check-in tables)
Get ready to launch into engineering fun! Build your very own mini-catapult using popsicle sticks, rubber bands and a bottle-cap launcher. Experiment with different designs, tweak your launcher for max power and see how far you can launch your pom-pom!Race Day Rally
Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)
Age groups: Middle school, high school
Location: Center of Excellence hallway (end of hallway by doors)
Get ready for a Pinewood Derby with a science twist! Race your car down the track, time your run and use the track length to calculate how fast your car really went. Plus, try out the racing simulator and see how real engineers test speed and performance.Seismic Shakedown
Mechanical Contractors Association (MCA)
Age groups: Elementary School, Middle School
Location: Center of Excellence hallway (side closer to revolving doors)
Build a structure out of Lego bricks and see if it can handle some intense shaking!Solid or Liquid? The Oobleck Mystery
Society of Women Engineers (SWE)
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school
Location: Hallway in front of ES 1414 (in hallway across from bathroom)
Meet the strange slime that acts like both a solid and a liquid: Oobleck, non-Newtonian fluid! Learn how to make oobleck, play with it and observe how it behaves differently depending on how you touch it.Wind-Powered Cars
Watson College Scholars Program
Age groups: Elementary school, middle school, high school
Location: Outside of ES 2001 (2nd floor, above check-in tables)
Students will design gliding or sailboat-like cars and put them to the test! Creativity is encouraged, and you can win candy.
Middle School Track
(Morning Session Only)
We are offering a new middle school “engineering adventure” track for a group of 20 middle school students who have a special interest in engineering and are interested in slightly elevated activities. Sign-ups are available on a first-come, first-served basis, and the student must be accompanied by a parent/guardian throughout the session.
Location: Center of Excellence Multipurpose Room
This session is facilitated by upper-level engineering and computer students in the
Watson College Scholars Program.
[REGISTRATION CLOSED]
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Middle School Track schedule
9:30-9:45 a.m. | Check in and get escorted to the activity location
9:45-10 a.m. | Engineer Explorer Kickoff
What is engineering, and why does it matter? Meet current Binghamton engineering students and discover how different engineering majors tackle real-world problems, from everyday technology to global challenges.10-10:30 a.m. | Engineering Challenge
Work with your team to solve a creative, theoretical challenge that highlights collaboration, critical thinking and innovative problem-solving, just like real engineers do.10:30-10:45 a.m. | Snack Break
Take a breather and refuel with a quick snack.10:45-11:15 a.m. | Hands-On Building Challenge
Now it’s time to bring ideas to life. Using the engineering concepts you just learned, your team will design, build, and test a solution. Experiment, iterate and see what works! Can your team rise to the challenge?11:15-11:30 a.m. | Show-and-Tell + Prizes
Show off your design and celebrate your hard work, with prizes awarded to the winning team!11:30 a.m.-Noon | Engineer Your Own Adventure
Choose one or two of the 40-plus Community Day activities throughout the building — you have 30 minutes to explore on your own!
High School Track
(Afternoon Session Only)
We are offering a high school track for a group of 20 high school students who may have a special interest in engineering and are interested in higher-level activities. Sign-ups are available on a first-come, first-served basis, and the student must be accompanied by a parent/guardian throughout the session.
Location: Center of Excellence Multipurpose Room
This session is facilitated by upper-level engineering and computer science students
in the Watson College Scholars Program, with a 30-minute faculty-led engineering activity
from Watson’s Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity.
Register for High School Track
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High School Track schedule
1-1:15 p.m. | Check-in and get escorted to the activity location)
1:15-1:30 p.m. | Engineer Explorer Kickoff
What is engineering, and why does it matter? Meet current Binghamton engineering students and discover how different engineering majors tackle real-world problems, from everyday technology to global challenges.1:30-2 p.m. | Engineering Challenge
Work with your team to solve a creative, theoretical challenge that highlights collaboration, critical thinking, and innovative problem-solving, just like real engineers do.2-2:15 p.m. | Snack Break
Take a breather and refuel with a quick snack.2:15-2:45 p.m. | Hands-On Building Challenge
Now it’s time to bring ideas to life. Using the engineering concepts you just learned, your team will design, build, and test a solution. Experiment, iterate, and see what works! Can your team rise to the challenge?2:45-3 p.m. | Project Display + Prizes
Show off your design and celebrate your hard work, with prizes awarded to the winning team!3-3:30 p.m. | Lights, Circuits, Action! Exploring Microelectronics & Hacking Secrets
Join professors from Watson’s Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity for an electrifying hands-on session! Explore electronic and microelectronic components, see how Raspberry Pi and Arduino operate, and discover the secrets of microelectronics in action.
Relaxation Station
New this year: A Relaxation Station will be available all day in ES 1006 (to the right of the check-in tables) as a quiet space to take a break from the hustle and bustle of Community Day activities. This space will offer a calm atmosphere with comfortable seating, dim lighting, soft music and quiet activities such as coloring, books and small sensory items. Children must be accompanied by an adult.
Sponsors
Thank you to all those who support Watson College's Engineers Week!
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