SVVSD hosts Innovation Center carnival for elementary families – Longmont Times-Call

High school students manned tables offering a smorgasbord of robots, building materials, coding kits and other high-tech toys on Wednesday at St. Vrain Valley’s Innovation Center, giving elementary students a chance to try some of the district’s technology.

“There’s a lot going on here,” said Erie High senior Jared Ingmire, an Innovation Center student designer and aeronautics student. “It opens up a whole bunch of doors.”

The elementary STEAM — Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math  — Carnival Night was funded through a $4,000 donation from Seagate Technology. The event, which includes a makerspace set up for preschool students, will be held for a second night, from 4 to 7 p.m. Thursday at the Innovation Center, 33 Quail Road, Longmont.

One popular station, led by Columbine Elementary STEM coordinator Sherie Dike-Wilhelm, used Bitsbox coding kits to teach students how circuits work.

“The idea behind the coding kits is to teach kids at a really young age how to build circuits,” she said.

Six-year-old Ethan McFarland, who discovered a pressure sensor as he played with the components, said “everything” at the event was fun.

His dad, Jason McFarland, said this was their first Innovation Center visit.

“He’s always interested in STEAM stuff,” Jason McFarland said of his son. “That’s his favorite thing to do at school.”

Marisa Ramel brought her 7-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter. She said she was looking for ways to challenge her son, who was recently identified as gifted, and to learn more about how the Innovation Center works.

“This is great,” she said. “They’re so excited to try everything. This is right up their alley.”

Other options included building towers from marshmallows and toothpicks, trying a green screen, building a marble run, programming a robotic mouse, creating a stop-motion video and using code to add initials to a bracelet.

Three high school students on the district’s robotics leadership team set up an arena so younger students could try the VEX robots and possibly join the elementary robotics teams. Skyline High junior Lily Downing said robotics has a lot to teach younger students.

“It’s a really good way to build teamwork skills and learn problem solving,” she said. “It’s just a really fun thing to do.”

The Innovation Center’s high school Tech Team also offered Tech Talks for parents on the tools used in the district, including Schoology, SeeSaw and Infinite Campus. The talks were organized by senior Ashish Karipalli for his Silver Creek High School Leadership Academy final project.

“It’s for parents to engage and learn how to navigate the technology resources,” he said.