Classes

Why Do Parents Love Our After-School Activities & Classes?

Parents love Engineering For Kids for many reasons, some of which include:

• We create a learning enrichment environment that’s suitable and enjoyable for children between the ages of 4 and 14
• Our esteemed educators are highly trained, kind, and compassionate
• We offer a variety of programs at different times to accommodate almost any schedule

Studies show that children enjoy going to school when they have fun after-school activities to attend. Our enrichment classes serve as the perfect win-win for parents and children alike. They also allow children to create new interests and build friendships that can last a lifetime.

JUNIOR CLASS DESCRIPTIONS

JUNIOR MECHANICAL ENGINEERING: Widgets and Gadgets

The Junior Mechanical Engineering classes introduce our youngest engineers to fundamental concepts of energy, materials, and movement. Through open and focused exploration, students explore and construct their own catapults, cars, and more.

JUNIOR AEROSPACE ENGINEERING: Taking to the Skies

The Junior Aerospace Engineering classes introduce our youngest engineers to fundamental concepts of aircraft and spacecraft design. Through open and focused exploration, students explore and construct airplanes, rockets, helicopters, and more.

JUNIOR CIVIL ENGINEERING: Fun Foundations

Building a house to withstand the Big, Bad Wolf is where the fun begins in Junior Civil. This class is centered on exploring the concepts of building and construction through hands-on exploration and design. Students explore the engineering behind sky scrapers, bridges, roads, and more in this fun and engaging experience.

JUNIOR ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING: Thinking Green

Are you ready to get down and dirty searching for solutions to some of our biggest environmental problems? In Junior Environmental, students ponder some truly “hot” environmental issues. Students in this class save endangered animals, help plants grow, and create protection from the sun’s heat. By investigating natural processes like erosion, animal adaptations, and plant growth; we discover ways that we, as engineers, can be inspired by the world around us to take on all sorts of challenges.

JUNIOR MARINE ENGINEERING: Set Sail

What causes something to sink or float? How can engineers help explore and protect the ocean below? These questions and more are all explored in Junior Marine. In this class, students explore the concepts of marine engineering and mechanics, harnessing the power of water, and discovering designs that help us make the impossible, possible.

JUNIOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERING: Crazy Concoctions

The Junior Chemical Engineering classes introduce our youngest engineers to fundamental concepts of solids, liquids, and solutions. Students investigate the properties of several crazy concoctions and make their own samples of bubbles, play dough, flub, and more.

JUNIOR ROBOTICS

This club is a perfect mixture of fun and learning. The goal of this club is to introduce the students to the concept of what robotics is as well as give the students a chance to build and program their first robot. Using LEGO® bricks, students build an airplane rescue, a giant escape, and a sailboat storm. Through various themes such as Wild Animals, Amazing Mechanisms, Soccer, the students learn how to program and operate their creations using a laptop computer.

JUNIOR SCRATCH PROGRAMMING

What’s more fun than playing an interactive video game? Writing one! Through this class, they will learn how to use Scratch to create and program sprites, backdrops and basic scripts. Depending on the theme, the kids could embark on a fun journey into space by sending an astronaut to the moon or explore how different sounds are created and then create our own interpretations of common musical instruments.

APPRENTICE CLASS DESCRIPTIONS

AEROSPACE ENGINEERING: Up, Up, and Away

During the Aerospace Engineering classes, students use the Engineering Design Process to design, create, test, and refine a variety of flying machines. They construct a shock absorbing system designed to protect two marshmallow astronauts in a lunar vehicle, create their own air-powered rockets, and assemble a hot air balloon model that actually takes flight!

APPRENTICE CIVIL ENGINEERING: Building Up

During the Civil Engineering classes, students use the Engineering Design Process to design, create, test, and refine a balsawood bridge designed to withstand the greatest force. They examine several different types of bridge designs and discover how the forces of tension, compression, bending, torsion, and shear are distributed throughout their structures.

APPRENTICE ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING: Electrified

During the Electrical Engineering classes, students use the Engineering Design Process to design, create, test, and refine basic electronics and circuits. Students experiment with Snap Circuits® to discover the capabilities of major electronic components. In addition, students build their own flashlights and explore the world of magnetic energy by building their own Magnetic Levitation vehicle.

APPRENTICE ELECTRONIC GAME DESIGN

Video games are everywhere and in almost every form you can imagine. In the Electronic Game Design: kids will create our own version of an game where we will create characters, backdrops, animation. We will use the Engineering Design Process to create a storyboard to outline the rules of play and characters for our game. Then, we will use Clickteam Fusion 2.5® to bring our storyboard to life with programming. At the end of the class, everyone takes home a working Windows-compatible game (Clickteam Fusion 2.5® does not support Mac or Android operating systems).The games that are built during this class could be picked from varying themes such as platform games, invader defense, car racing among many others.

APPRENTICE ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING: Go Green

During the Environmental Engineering classes, students use the Engineering Design Process to design, create, test, and refine basic solutions related to alternative energy and environmental issues. They learn principles behind crafting efficient wind-powered machines and discover how those machines can be used to help reduce the use of fossil fuels. During the culminating project, students test different materials to discover which ones most effectively clean up after an oil spill.

APPRENTICE HARDWARE ENGINEERING:Get Wired with MaKey MaKey

Imagine designing a piano using celery or creating a custom digital training program. Now,envision playing video games using just your body, a bit of wire and your own imagination. In our hardware engineering program, students engineer their own customized video game controllers using a Makey Makey device and materials that can be found in just about any kitchen. Through application of circuitry, acoustical engineering and video game design, students discover new ways to interact with technology, all while creating unique designs in a fun collaborative environment

APPRENTICE INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING: A-Line Productions

During the Industrial Engineering classes, students use the Engineering Design Process to design, create, test, and refine efficient systems for production. Students explore foundational concepts of industrial engineering such as: assembly lines, safety, stamping, sorting and distributing materials. Students see just how fun and creative industrial engineering can be as they create their own ice cream factory and 3-D copies of designs.

APPRENTICE MARINE ENGINEERING: Making Waves

During the Marine Engineering classes, students use the Engineering Design Process to design, create, test, and refine several types of marine based devices and vehicles. Students construct working prototypes that teach and reinforce the concepts of above water transportation, underwater exploration, and harnessing the power of water. They gain exposure to careers in naval, ocean, and marine engineering as well as naval architecture.

APPRENTICE MECHANICAL ENGINEERING: Master Machines

During the Mechanical Engineering classes, students use the Engineering Design Process to design, create, test, and refine a variety of machines and mechanical systems. Students learn basics of fluid mechanics, simple machines, and other design and engineering concepts while constructing roller coasters, egg-drop vehicles, and an incredibly fast air powered dragster they keep at the end of the course.

APPRENTICE CHEMICAL ENGINEERING: Mix It Up

During the Chemical Engineering classes, students use the Engineering Design Process to design, create, test, and refine various mixtures and solutions with different chemical properties. They develop solutions to clean up an oil spill, synthesize their own rocket fuel, and investigate the secrets behind color pigmentation.

APPRENTICE ROBOTICS ENGINEERING

During the Robotics 101 program, students will learn the basics of designing, programming, and controlling a fully functional robot. Using LEGO® MINDSTORMS® or EV3 Robots, mathematical concepts, and engineering principles students will brainstorm, plan, test, and modify sequences of instructions to accomplish a given task. Students will also learn the sequence of communication between the robot, and the programmer by collecting and analyzing data using the robot’s sensors. Similar to Game Design, during our robotics classes, there are varying themes that you can pick from such as Robotics 101, Robo Olympics, Robo Battles, Rescue Robots, Da-Vinci Designs, Mission to Mars among many others.

APPRENTICE SOFTWARE ENGINEERING: Scratch Video Programming and Sensing

What’s more fun than playing an interactive video game? Writing one! Video sensing allows students to design and program their own video games and then test them by interacting with the program via webcam. In this Scratch program, students work together to create their own games, art, and musical instruments while exploring coding foundations. Get up and get moving with Engineering for Kids and Scratch Programming class.