Myles Porter and Patrick LaVeck show their project during the Engineering Camp Showcase on Friday, July 24 at the Innovare Advancement Center in Rome.
Owen Wright on Friday, July 24 with the prize he won for his work during Engineering Camp at the Innovare Advancement Center in Rome.
Myles Porter holds up his project on Friday, July 24 during the Engineering Camp Showcase at the Innovare Advancement Center in Rome.
Nora La Veck and Briella LaMonica with their projects at the Engineering Camp Showcase on Friday, July 24 at the Innovare Advancement Center in Rome.

Staff writer
Myles Porter and Patrick LaVeck show their project during the Engineering Camp Showcase on Friday, July 24 at the Innovare Advancement Center in Rome.
Owen Wright on Friday, July 24 with the prize he won for his work during Engineering Camp at the Innovare Advancement Center in Rome.
Myles Porter holds up his project on Friday, July 24 during the Engineering Camp Showcase at the Innovare Advancement Center in Rome.
Nora La Veck and Briella LaMonica with their projects at the Engineering Camp Showcase on Friday, July 24 at the Innovare Advancement Center in Rome.
ROME — “You are all engineers,” Engineering Camp instructor Toni York told her student participants Friday at their Engineering Camp Showcase at the Innovare Advancement Center. “Everything you’ve done this week was real engineering.”
More than a dozen students shared the projects and challenges they’ve worked on since Tuesday during the showcase. Those construction projects included building a newspaper tower, a safe egg drop mechanism, homemade flashlights, a direct current-powered light bulb and even a moon base supply drop apparatus, all designed and created by the students.
There were 19 students in sixth through eighth grades from 11 different school districts attending the Engineering Camp. And that is just the right age to make it fun for York as well.
“The middle school age is old enough to understand science and do cool things with it, but young enough to still enjoy making messes,” she said. “It’s a good balance.”
The camp was sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory Information and Spectrum Warfare Directorate with support of the Griffiss Institute.
Owen Wright, an incoming seventh grader at Frankfort-Schuyler Middle School, demonstrated Isaac Newton’s Second Law of Motion. Standing on a chair and using two weights, one attached to a parachute, he dropped them together to show which would hit the floor first. His team Titanium came in first place for having the most accumulated points in all of their projects during Engineering Camp.
He said he will be taking accelerated science in the coming school year, so the Engineering Camp was inspiring.
“This showed me a lot of things about science that are interesting,” he said.
His dad Matt complimented all of the students on their projects, while his mom Meghan thanked the sponsors, the staff and the volunteers for hosting the Engineering Camp.
Makenzi Enos, STEM senior program analyst at the Griffiss Institute, said Engineering Camp not only gives the chance to show the students what they like, but also what they may not like quite as much at the same time.
“The goal of Engineering Camp is to inspire the next generation of scientists, technologists, engineers, mathematicians … but also, it gives the opportunity for students to find out if they really love something or if they really don’t love something, so when they continue on through their education to eventually go to college they have this experience to gauge where they want to go with it,” Enos said.
“The middle school age is old enough to understand science and do cool things with it, but young enough to still enjoy making messes.”
Engineering Camp instructor Toni York
Staff writer
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