Credit: Kally Proctor

A banner hung in the entrance to the WHS commons welcomes students and parents in to Wayland’s annual STEM Fair. The fair featured set-ups from WHS clubs and organizations, as well as engaging activities related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. “Mainly my goal was to inspire a lifelong learning among STEM for the younger kids,” senior and robotics team President Charmaine Guo said. “[We wanted] to encourage the middle and elementary schoolers and to entice them to join these clubs.”

On Saturday, Dec. 9, the Wayland High School robotics team resumed the annual Wayland science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fair. The team organized the fair to spread love for STEM and to introduce middle and elementary school students to the STEM clubs at WHS.

“I planned the STEM Fair to be this event [that is] kind of advertised towards younger kids,” senior and robotics team President Charmaine Guo said. “[The event was] for them to learn about STEM, learn about opportunities in STEM at the high school and middle school and also for middle schoolers to show off their passion for STEM by making projects that they can win prizes for.”

The STEM Fair featured tables set up by various WHS clubs, including the math team, green team, genius bar and some others. Many of these club set-ups featured posters or flyers with information about the club, and some even included demonstrations and examples of the type of work the club does.

“[The goal of the fair] is mostly to grow the interest of STEM and make sure the love for STEM continues on to the high school when [younger kids] come,” junior and robotics team Vice President Eunjee Kang said. “We hope this is going to be positive for everyone and it will inspire them to continue their interest in STEM in high school with these specific clubs that we’re presenting.”

The robotics team also focused its energy on inviting other organizations into the fair in an effort to expand the event’s reach. In addition to the tables organized by WHS clubs, the fair included contributions and sponsorships from local businesses, as well as set-ups from other high school teams.

“The robotics team focuses a lot on community outreach,” Guo said. “We always try to do events throughout the town, like at the library, the Middlesex Savings Bank, Carriage House and the middle school. We just love the community and love spreading robotics. [For this fair], we went to businesses and were like, ‘hey, do you want to advertise in our booklet?’ I reached out to a bunch of other teams as well, [including] Northeastern, Boston University and four other First Robotics Competition (FRC) teams from other high schools that we’ve competed with in the past.”

In addition to the tables that were set up at the fair, the robotics team reported that they put in extensive time and effort into behind-the-scenes planning and organization work. This included tasks such as outreach to other clubs and organizations, as well as organizing the activities, like small engineering crafts, a rocket launch and a virtual reality headset which students could try.

“[There was] a lot of planning, a lot of emailing people and seeing who could come, emailing sponsors, trying to fund the STEM Fair, finding things that would make this more fun,” junior and assistant software lead Arya Samaratunga said. “Like for activities we have lego building. We have some robots that you can drive around and some other activities, and so a lot of planning [went into it].”

The fair also featured a main event for the middle and elementary school students: a project competition which resembled science fairs. Students independently researched and created projects on topics ranging from food science to ecology and engineering, bringing in their finished results to be judged by the robotics team leaders and advisors at the fair.

“Some of the [middle and elementary school students] made a project at home,” Kang said. “They [presented] them at our STEM Fair and we had four prizes for whichever projects the judges picked [as the best].”

While the STEM Fair has been held at WHS in the past, in recent years the fair was halted. The robotics team members felt it was important to bring the fair back this year.

“I think it was stopped last year or the year before because of COVID-19, but we really wanted to bring it back again this year because it’s important to have this opportunity for younger kids,” Samaratunga said. “Seeing all the little kids come up [to] look at the projects and be super interested and excited and ask so many questions just inspired us to create the STEM Fair for them to explore STEM fields themselves.”