STEM Spark Festival

By Evamaryl Sillas

Staff Writer

The SSF team collaborates to create an event introducing young students to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Applications to volunteer for this event were due March 10th, 2025. April 12, 2025, was when the event itself took place. The location was the Lancaster Community Center. There were a total of five board members for this project. Vivian Cruz, Julian Rubine, Maym Habib, Photini Qarmout, and Brianna.

The festival consisted of student-run rooms; Coding, Lego Building, How to Understand Facial Expressions & Body Language, Prosthetic Design, Robotics Workshop, Slime Making Polymers + Molecular Shape Building A+C, DNA Extraction Lab, Chemistry of Cooking, Math Escape Room, Candy Models + DNA, Soap Bubbles A+C,  and Bridge Building Competition.

A couple of the times for the general and board members to meet up were Thursday, March 27th, and Thursday, April 10th, during Star Hour-Lunch in T600-F. They discussed which room(s) each member was going to work on for the event. These selected teams would bring, set up, and teach in their designated room(s).

They taught young children about diverse topics in STEM in the gallery room. The STEM expo had winners, and so did this mini expo. The robotics team came on board to share their STEM expo project. Hunter Heinze and Anthony Perry won first place in this mini STEM expo. 

Member Panayiota Qarmout speaks on the prediction and outcome of this festival, “I thought it was going to be chaotic and hard to direct people to a room or to connect with people, but it turns out that everyone had such a strong interest and to learn. It was nice to connect with people personally and grasp their interests and expand them.”