August 4-7, 2025
9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
Yale Wright Laboratory
272 Whitney Ave., New Haven
Application coming soon; please check back.
Program rationale and goals
This program will engage a cohort of up to 12 middle school students from the New Haven area in exploring science, technology, and the natural world together across a range of disciplines.
Middle school is a critical time for students to explore and develop potential interest in STEMM. Students at this age often don’t have the space, environment, nor opportunity to explore scientific and technical topics with a cohort of like-minded students. Moreover, the end of the summer is often a period of few activities, unless they are traveling with their families.
In this year’s program, participants will engage with and learn about programming and robotics through hands-on projects and group-led exploration.
Please also see this article about our Summer 2024 program.
What to bring and other logistics
- Lunch will be provided daily.
- Participants should bring a water bottle.
- If you have your own laptop you are willing and able to bring, please feel free to do so. Otherwise, we will provide one for your use.
- Drop off and pick up: The drop off window will be from 8:40 a.m.-8:55 a.m.. Please try to get there during this window so we can start on time. Pick up will be at 5:00 p.m.
- With construction going on all around the lab, we will have a student available to meet participants at our front entrance at drop off and will also bring them outside the front door for pick up.
- You should be able to drop off and pick up your student by the door, but parking is not available at this time. Please plan accordingly.
- Directions are available on our website’s Visit page.
Sample daily schedule
8:40-8:55 a.m. Drop off students at WL front entrance
9:00 a.m. Program activities
12:00 p.m. Lunch break, outside activity on Leitner lawn
1:00 p.m. Program activities
3.45 p.m. Enrichment activity (see below)
5:00 p.m. End; pick up students at WL front entrance.
Enrichment activities
Sample enrichment activities from 2024.
- Yale Peabody Museum Tour
- “Computer programming, art, and animations,” Ted Kim-Professor of Engineering & Applied Science
- “Stem Cells,” Amaleah Hartman-Lecturer, Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology
- Tour of Wright Lab
People
Faculty Advisors
- Lynn Connelly: a science teacher from Hopkins School who teaches physics and robotics and advises the Hopkins robotics team
- Karsten Heeger: Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics, Chair of the Yale Physics Department, and Director of the Yale Wright Laboratory
- Reina Maruyama: Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Yale and a member of Yale’s Wright Lab.
Student Assistants
- TBA
Technical Advisor
- Paul Noel, Yale Physics Technology Services Specialist and Instructional Tech
Program Administrative Support
- Jenn Arnone
- Victoria Misenti
Sponsored by the Yale Department of Physics, the Michele Dufault Endowment for Yale Women in Science, the Yale Wright Laboratory, and Yale University