Experience STEM as it Was
BEFORE the Evil Laziness of the Microchip!
If you'd like your school, library, or community venue to host our in-person and livestreaming interactive programs visit Contact & Booking. You can also look into Funding Options for assistance in paying for STEMpunk™ programming as well as explore our Free Resources.
Choose from Day Programs or Learning Odysseys
Day Programs
These programs are 1.0-5.0 hour learning experiences designed to give attendees of all ages an introduction to the fascinating histories of STEM tech as well as provide hands on time with selections from our inventory of vintage tech STEM devices and learning tools. These programs are immediately below.
Learning Odysseys
Learning Odysseys are full-day or multi-day combinations of our most popular and intriguing programs. Learning Odysseys give students the opportunity to have extended hands-on time with our rare tools of STEM’s yesteryear and have a more in-depth retrospective into the historical and social aspects of past innovations. These programs are towards the bottom of the page.
Day Programs
Our selection of 1.0 to 5.0 hour programs designed for single engagements.
May The Force (of Static Electricity) Be with You!
A Star Wars themed science exploration where we'll learn to use The Force (of Static Electricity) to levitate and repel objects, power light tubes, propel spacecraft, generate lightning, and more! There'll be lots of opportunities for padawans to perform Jedi tricks themselves.
➤ In-Person Delivery Only
Ages 5/6-Adult/Senior. Download a Program Description / Common Core Map
Home Computing 1965: before the Microchip
Coding and gaming like you've never seen them! Visit the nearly lost era of analog, hard-wired, and mechanical computing and experience first hand how the founders and builders of the modern digital revolution learned about programming and played with computers at home.
➤ In-Person & Livestream Delivery
Ages 9/10-Adult/Senior. Download a Program Description / Common Core Map
When Slide Rules Ruled: A History & Primer in Use
For 350 years Slide Rules were the go-to calculating device in STEM. Now's your chance to learn about their history and how to use them. There’ll be hands-on activities that help you visualize and even feel how numbers work and an environment designed for novices and those who never thought they could do math.
➤ In-Person & Livestream Delivery
Ages 10/11-Adult/Senior. Download a Program Description / Common Core Map
Automata: Simple Machines Mimicking Life
Introduction to the history, art, and science behind clockwork toys that mimic animal and human life. Learn the basic mechanisms of automata, trace their evolution from the Renaissance to the digital era, have hands-on time exploring real automata, and even build your own basic automaton.
➤ In-Person & Livestream Delivery
Ages 7/8-Adult/Senior. Download a Program Description / Common Core Map
Fly Me to the Moon: The Apollo 11 Lunar Landing
The greatest achievement of engineering and science in human history ... and you missed it! Here's your chance to experience what it was like for the 8 days from July 16-24, 1969 while three astronauts did what cultures around the Earth had dreamed of for millennia - travel to the Moon and back.
➤ In-Person & Livestream Delivery
Ages 6/7-Adult/Senior. Download a Program Description / Common Core Map
Marble-ous Machines: Ingenious Marble Computers
See computing and gaming in a whole new way by getting hands-on time with marble-driven computers, calculators, and logic games. You'll learn about binary math, get a rare glimpse into what actually happens inside computer circuits, and create arithmetic and logic programs to solve problems ... all with marbles!
➤ In-Person & Livestream Delivery
Ages 9/10-Adult/Senior. Download a Program Description / Common Core Map
Fairies in the Cogwork: STEM & Fairy Tales
Explore one of the Victorian era's most popular tales of wonder, enchantment, and peril before identifying and solving a character’s main challenge using a contraption you build from home recycling based on the 6 Simple Machines. Who needs magic when you’ve got STEM on your side?
➤ In-Person & Livestream Delivery
Ages 7/8-Adult/Senior. Download a Program Description / Common Core Map
Difference Engines: Mechanical Computers
Before the digital era, engineers and tradespeople built elegant engines of logic to aid in their calculations. Visit a world where bones, beads, and cogs are the cutting edge of computation. Lots of hands-on time with antique computing machines and artifacts as well as mind-blowing discoveries about math await!
➤ In-Person & Livestream Delivery
Ages 9/10-Adult/Senior. Download a Program Description / Common Core Map
A HISTORY OF SECRECY: ANALOG CIPHERs & ENCRYPTION
Cyber-security may be a buzz-word of the 21st century, but the art of keeping information secret goes back thousands of years. We'll learn about famous (and infamous) encryption systems and practice encrypting, sending, receiving, and decrypting messages using vintage tools and methods.
➤ In-Person & Livestream Delivery
Ages 8/9-Adult/Senior. Download a Program Description / Common Core Map
SOL: A Solar System Journey
Explore our sun SOL and discover that despite being "in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Galaxy," the mysteries and magic of our Solar System, Earth, and Moon are far from "unregarded." Join us as we chart an arc of observing and learning across our sky.
➤ In-Person & Livestream Delivery
Ages 9/10-Adult/Senior. Download a Program Description / Common Core Map
Learning Odysseys
Our selection of full-day or multi-day programs designed for extended engagements, typically as after school programs or summer camps. These are customizable to a variety of needs. More programs to be added.
Mars Lander Challenge
You're an engineer on a team responsible for designing a lander that will deliver an astronaut to the surface of Mars. You'll have materials, schedules, deadlines, budgets, and the challenges of the Martian atmosphere to contend with. Can you do it? Of course you can! Join us for the science and the fun.
➤ In-Person Delivery Only
Ages 10/11-Adult/Senior. Download a Program Description / Common Core Map
Forgotten Math of STEM’s Past
Learn the secrets of solving equations using eight rare analog computing artifacts from the 17th to early 20th centuries. Then fashion your own paper and cardboard versions of four of history’s most famous calculating devices and practice using them in the same ways as did the STEM pioneers who lived long before the age of silicon.
➤ In-Person Delivery Only
Ages 8/9-Adult/Senior; Anyone comfortable with 2 digit by 2 digit multiplication and division
Space 1889: Journey to the Moon
Baron von Vaderstein is piloting a recently unearthed alien spacecraft to its ancient point of origin - the Moon! Her Majesty’s Extraordinary Adventurers have a twin spacecraft, but have no idea how to use its mechanical computer brain. Join the Adventurers in a race to master the Mechabrain and beat the Baron to the Moon!
➤ In-Person Delivery Only
Ages 10/11-Adult/Senior. Download a Program Description / Common Core Map
