In its young history, the USA Science & Engineering Festival’s X-STEM Symposium, sponsored by MedImmune, has already become well known for bringing kids up close and personal with some of most renowned and inspiring minds in STEM. The event once again lived up to its reputation with flair and excitement on April 28 when more than 4,000 6th-12th-grade students traveled to the Washington, D.C. Convention Center for the 2nd X-STEM Symposium. Continue reading to hear about high school sophomore Corey Williams’ experience at the event!
The trip to the X-STEM symposium at the Walter E. Washington convention center in Washington D.C. was a very fun and educational experience. We were able to listen to five different knowledgeable and intelligent speakers talk about very relevant and interesting topics in very fun and engaging ways. My favorite talk of the day was given by Andrew Zwicker who spoke about fusion energy. I thought it was a very interesting topic and learned about how close they were to actually making this form of clean energy available, how safe it is- if the magnetic container is breached at all it shuts itself down- and that they’re even building a huge one in France with multiple nations working together to make it a reality. I also learned about how little is needed to make it run- just a few barrels of water for a whole year!
The first speaker of the day was Greg Gage a neuroscientist who worked on a very interesting project: he created the first cyborg cockroach that could be controlled by his phone to be used for things such as searching through ruble for survivors of earthquakes, which is great. Easton lachappelle was very inspiring, he created an affordable robotic arm that is lighter than an actual human arm with just parts of things such as an RC car. He even placed second in the international science fair while starting his own business, and was giving national speeches by the time he was nineteen. He is really inspirational and awesome.
Another very interesting lecture was given by Tyler Dewitt on communicating science, which I think was great. He talked about how to teach science in a fun, engaging way that will capture kids minds and make them want to learn science. It is very important to capture the minds of young kids in the field of science. The thing I will take away from this experience is all the different ideas and fields that are out there for people to work in or still discover that could change the way the earth works and put it on a good track to a clean environment, like fusion energy, or even make lives better for millions with ideas just like Easton’s robotic arm for amputees.
