Durango High School (DHS) robotics students recently stepped into the role of mentors, organizing and hosting a hands-on summer camp to share their passion for STEM with younger students across Durango School District (DSD, formerly 9-R).
Held at the Impact Career Innovation Center, the camp welcomed students entering 6th through 9th grade. What began as a plan for a single-week experience quickly grew into a two-week program after high demand brought in 12 participants during the first session and nine additional students for the second.
The student-led effort was spearheaded by rising 11th grader Austin Whitman and rising 12th graders Shreya Vaidya and Giddeon Bokelman, with support and mentoring from incoming 12th graders Maya Donaldson and Orin Gartner. DHS teachers Jordan Englehart and Peter Fogg volunteered to help facilitate the camps, but the high school students managed event setup, daily activities, and parent communications. All of the student leaders are active members of the DHS Robotics Career and Technical Student Organization (CTSO), which operates alongside the DHS Engineering program.
The main objective of the camp was for small student teams to design and build a FIRST Tech Challenge "starter bot." The completed robots were designed to launch large wiffle balls into a scoring chamber, similar to playing a game of robotic basketball.
Beyond robot construction, campers gained hands-on experience in the Makerspace. Teams established unique identities by choosing names and mascots, which they then designed and 3D printed using TinkerCad software. They also crafted custom team T-shirts using a Cricut vinyl cutter. Daily engineering design tasks — such as the "spaghetti tower challenge" and the paper "rocket catcher challenge" — kept participants thinking quickly and working collaboratively.
"The summer camp was organized by the high school team leaders to help introduce middle school aged students to the style of competitive robotics we do in high school, and hopefully help build excitement for the FIRST Tech Challenge in which we compete," Englehart said. "It was also a fundraising opportunity, to help the team generate the money needed to make continued upgrades to our robot to help us stay competitive at the state level."
Each week wrapped up with a showcase for parents, where teams put their custom gear on display and put their robots to the test in a friendly end-of-camp competition.
With strong community interest and enthusiasm from all involved, the student organizers are already making plans to turn the summer robotics camp into an annual district tradition.