ideaventions™ partners with local elementary and middle schools to offer after school enrichment programs featuring Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) curriculum.  ideaventions™ offers our science and technology labs at public and private schools.  We work with PTAs and after school coordinators to design a science and technology enrichment program to meet the needs of the school and the families.

Our Science and Technology labs feature:

• High tech equipment (digital microscopes, laptops, LEGO Mindstorms, LEGO WeDo Robotics)
• Small class sizes allowing individualized attention and exploration
• Knowledgeable, experienced and highly trained lab leaders featuring science, technology and education backgrounds 
• Quality STEM curriculum based on hands-on student lab experiments

Ignite curiosity and develop confidence in students by exploring science, technology, engineering and mathematics through Ideaventions Science and Technology After School Enrichment Programs. 

Lab Offerings | Lab Instructors | Logistics | Policies | Lab Equipment and Software | Contact 

Note: We are currently full and not accepting any new schools for this year or the 2013-2014 school year. If you are interested in being placed on the waiting list, please send an email to info@ideaventions.com. We will let you know if availability opens up.


Point of Contact: 

Juliana Heitz, CEO and Co-Founder

STEM Enrichment Programs

We offer a wide variety of quality science and technology labs for 1st-8th grade.  View Lab Descriptions.  The following are examples of our labs: 

Offerings by Grade-Level: 1st-3rd | 4th-6th | 6th-8th

 1st-3rd Grade

• Junior Robotics (Amazing Mechanisms, Harry Potter, Star Wars themes)
• Secret Agent Club
• Mission: Space
• Magical Spells
• Pirate Treasure Hunt
• Time Travel: Age of Dinosaurs
• Science Sampler for 1^st-3^rd Grades
• Stop Motion Animation (3^rd-6^th Grades)
• Extreme Structures: Engineering Design (3^rd-5^thGrades)
• Spa Science (3^rd-5^th Grades)

• Secret Agent Club
• Mission: Terraform
• Pirate Treasure Hunt
• Industrial Engineering
• Extreme Structures: Engineering Design
• Spa Science
• Robotics (LEGO® MINDSTORMS®; Ancient Civilization, Mission to Mars, Legends)
• Stop Motion Animation (3^rd-6^th Grades)
• Forensic Science (Crime Scene Investigation) (6^th-8^th Grades)
• Idea Lab: Computer Science (6^th-8^th Grades)
• Advanced Robotics (LEGO® MINDSTORMS® (6^th-8^th Grades)
• Math Challenge Club (5th - 7th Grades)

• Computer Science with Java
• Idea Lab: Computer Science (Microcontrollers – Arduino)
• Advanced Robotics (LEGO® MINDSTORMS®, Arduino)
• Video Game Development (Microsoft XNA Game Studio)
• Introduction to Web Development (HTML, Javascript)
• Forensic Science (Crime Scene Investigation)

 Logistics

ideaventions™ provides professional lab instructors, STEM curriculum and materials, including lab equipment, laptops, and projectors.  Our instructors bring subject matter expertise in science and technology and a passion for teaching.  ideaventions™ in continually researching and developing innovative, engaging, quality STEM curriculum for our Science and Technology Enrichment Program.  We use the cutting edge technology such as laptops, projectors, robotics kits, Arduino microcontrollers, digital microscopes and best-in-class software such as Tufts University SAM Animation, Scratch, LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT and Microsoft's Robotics Studio. 

Ideaventions operates our after school enrichment programs with a focus on quality, specific highlights include:

• Communications and Management
  • We understand the challenges scheduling and coordinating after school enrichment, our staff works closely with after school coordinators and parents to ensure effective and efficient communication.
• Materials
  • Ideaventions provides cutting edge technology such as laptops, projectors, robotics kits, Arduino microcontrollers, digital microscopes and best-in-class software such as Tufts University SAM Animation, LEGO® MINDSTORMS® and Microsoft's Robotics Studio.
• Lab Curriculum
  • ideaventions™ provides innovative, quality STEM curriculum. Each lab consists of 1 to 3 lab activities designed to engage the students in hands-on learning and exploration of topics in science, technology and engineering.  The goal is to support intellectual curiosity and provide an enriching experience through small groups, quality materials and instruction, and curriculum designed around student-led experimentation and problem solving activities – not simply demonstrations or superficial activities.
• Arrival
  • ideaventions™ instructors arrive early to check in and prepare for labs. We are ready when the children arrive to ensure a prompt start.
• Departure
  • Ideaventions works with each school to ensure the departure procedures are followed including sign in and sign out processes.  After completing a lab, we make certain the lab space is left in the condition it was found – we respect the space and property entrusted to us.

• Location and Pick Up:
  • ideaventions™ is held at the school in a location determined by the school coordinator.
  • ideaventions™ follows the school policy for the after-school program arrival/pick-up.  If a policy is not in place, the instructor will be at the designated classroom and:

• • ideaventions™ is not responsible for children before or after the stated class times. If a child is not picked up by 10 minutes after the end of class, they will be taken to the school office.
• Conduct:
  • Safety is our number one priority. Children are expected to respect their lab leaders, their fellow lab mates and follow safety rules.
  • If behavior in class places the child, another child or the lab leader in danger, the lab leader will contact the program coordinator or someone from the school office. Additionally, he/she may be asked to withdraw from the class.
  • We use “Positive Discipline” and “1-2-3 Magic” for classroom management.

• Inclement Weather:
  • ideaventions™ follows the inclement weather policy followed by the school.
  • If the school is open, but we deem that it is unsafe for our leaders to travel from their location to the school, we will notify our coordinator and arrange for a make-up class at the end of the session.

• Missed Classes/Refunds:
  • ideaventions™ does not offer make ups or refunds for missed classes due to conflicts or illness.
  • For refund requests made prior to the start of the program, a $10 processing fee will be deducted. No refunds once the program has begun.
• Privacy:
  • ideaventions™ does not share attendance, enrollment, email addresses or personal information with any outside organization or person without the prior approval of the parent.
• Scholarships:
  • In order to keep prices as low as possible for the families, we are unable to continue to offer scholarships or free tuition. 
  • In the event that a parent coordinator must be present in through the class, we will provide a 50% discount to that one parent for the one class. This may not be shared across multiple families.

ideaventions™ uses cutting edge technology and quality equipment in our science and technology labs to create an engaging and supportive environment that provides students novel opportunities to learn and advance through direct experiments and observation. Examples of the technology and lab equipment we use include:

• Laptops - ideaventions™ uses laptops to provide students a computing platform that support the science and technology curriculum.
• Projectors – Using DLP projectors that provide bright images and colors, we make lessons come alive – whether we are exploring geography with Google Earth or viewing student stop motion movies.
• Software
• SAM Animation – Developed by Tufts University, SAM allows students to capture images using digital cameras and turn them into stop motion films.
• Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio – Provides lightweight robotics development and simulation environment that support asynchronous services-oriented runtime for robot messaging.
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 – An integrated development environment for students to learn computer programming using the latest techniques and languages.
• Scratch (MIT Media Lab) – A programming language and environment that makes it easy to teach object oriented programming and computer science concepts to students.
• Stellarium – A planetarium software that provides a realistic simulation of the night sky including planets, nebulae, stars, and galaxies.
• Audacity – Provides a rich sound recording and editing environment that we use to prepare audio files for our digital films or analyzing voice spectrographs for forensic science.
• Google Earth – We use Google Earths ability to display the world in 3D to study geography as part of our Secret Agent classes.  We also use it to explore Mars and our Moon as part of our space curriculum.
• Arduino – An electronics prototyping platform that we use to teach design, electronics, and computer science.  Arduino makes it easy to invent and experiment with electronic creations.
• Terraformers (Carnegie Mellon University) – This software provides space oriented robotics challenges that support STEM objectives in the context of preparing another planet or moon for human habitation.
• LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT – A visual programming environment that we apply in our robotics curriculum to teach students how to program robots while learning key computer programming concepts such as iteration, variables, and conditional statements. 
• LEGO® Digital Designer – A virtual building software that we use to teach students 3D modeling, engineering, and design while strengthening spatial abilities. 
• Digital Microscopes – ideaventions™ uses digital microscopes to allow children to explore the microscopic world – studying specimens such as protozoa, minerals, and soil.  Using the image capture and video recording capabilities, students use these scientific tools to capture and study the world around them.
• Glassware – To support our explorations in chemistry, we use quality glassware to teach students units of measure and proper lab techniques.
• Digital Scales – ideaventions™ uses high accuracy digital scales for students to measure chemicals for experiments and observe the mass of objects.
• Hologram Kits – Ideaventions uses these kits to teach students how to create and development holograms and the science behind a holographic image.
• LEGO® Robotics and Engineering
• LEGO® MINDSTORMS®– Hands-on robotics kits that provide easy to use components for children to build with as they experiment and engineer solutions to challenges  
• Green City Challenge - A robotics engineering challenge set that is themed on completing actions that will help make a city more sustainable.  
• LEGO® WeDo Robotics – For younger students, WeDo robotics provides an exciting and engaging platform for learning about mechanics, sensors and computer programming.
• LEGO® Machines and Mechanisms
• Simple and Motorized Mechanisms – Students explore gearing, measurement, and mechanical forces using these hands on materials that encourage engineering.
• Renewable Energy – We use this set to teach concepts such as energy efficiency and the transfer of energy from one form to another form within a system.

Juliana Heitz, President and Founder

STEM Enrichment Programs