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Any current 5th, 6th, or 7th grade Virginia student may apply. The cost is $700.00 per student. Tuition assistance is available based on need. Virginia STEAM Academy is offering ONE session of Summer STEAM: July 9-15, 2017 on the campus of Richard Bland College of William & Mary. The deadline to apply is March 10.  Please share with interested students and families. For more information and to apply, click here

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The team achieved the second-place trophy for Robot Performance in their division, and were also awarded the third-place trophy for the overall Champions Award that recognizes a team that embodies the FLL experience. To receive this honor, the team must represent the Core Values of FLL (sportsmanship and teamwork) while achieving excellence and innovation in all aspects of the tournament in Robot Design and original Research Project.

Over the past 12 weeks, the team custom designed, built, and pre-programmed a LEGO EV3 robot to accomplish various “missions” on a 4’x8′ game field and score as many points as possible in 150 seconds. Their robot earned the second highest score among a field of 69 teams, and third overall when including the 39 additional middle school teams. In addition to spending hundreds of hours designing the robot and programming it, the group did extensive work over the past few months on the required topic: learning about how animals and humans interact and how to improve upon the relationship to benefit the animal, the humans, or both. As part of their research, the team toured the aviation simulation lab at MITRE in October, visited the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, toured the Fairfax County Animal Shelter, met with a dog trainer, and Skyped with one of 70 specialized animal behaviorists veterinarians in the world, received input from the Chief Digital Officer at The Franklin Institute, and conducted firsthand research via an original online survey. At the tournament, they presented their findings and solution for a virtual-reality based environment for shelter dogs proposal to judges, complete with a scale model of a prototype. More information can be found on the team’s web blog at http://tinyurl.com/cresfll2016 and at http://www.firstlegoleague.org.

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CEE is gearing up to pilot BioSTEM Clubs which will offer diverse STEM opportunities to students in undeserved urban and rural schools. CEE is piloting its BioSTEM Clubs in an effort to increase awareness of STEM research and career opportunities for underserved students and promote their success in STEM fields.

Virginia STEAM Academy and CEE commit to mutual outreach and sharing of program resources and contacts. Specifically, Virginia STEAM Academy looks forward to identifying Virginia STEAM Academy alumni to act as BioSTEM champions in participating BioSTEM Club schools, identifying Virginia STEAM Academy instructors to participate in CEE-sponsored BioSTEM Club activities, such as webinars and career panels, and sharing and promoting CEE programing opportunities, including USA Biology Olympiad and Research Science Institute, among Virginia STEAM Academy participants.

Likewise, CEE welcomes the opportunity to promote Virginia STEAM Academy resident and teaching assistant position opportunities among CEE graduates, identify CEE leaders and Research Science Institute faculty to serve as keynote speakers or panelists at Virginia STEAM Academy symposia, webinars, and other events, and invite exceptional Virginia STEAM Academy ambassadors, referred by Virginia STEAM Academy, to apply to Research Science Institute.

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Ainsley, a Tomahawk Creek Middle School student, was selected out of more than 600 statewide applicants to participate in the Virginia Science and Technology Engineering and Applied Mathematics (STEAM) Academy’s summer program, Summer STEAM.

Ainsley attended the Shenandoah University session where she studied engineering, innovation and inventions. Her team built a gramophone, learned about patents, created a product, wrote a patent application and prepared a presentation on the Mars rovers for the final session.

Click here to read the full story and view the video segment on WTVR.

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Rocky Mount Ambassador Katie Bird (’13) (far right) facilitates a rockets session at her local library.

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