SPARK Summer Program
We Are Proud To Announce A New Partnership With
The Connecticut Invention Convention (CIC)!
Through this partnership, we offer a "She Innovates" session daily that fosters creativity, leading up to a CIC Innovation Showcase.
About SPARK
SPARK is a summer camp for middle school girls interested in STEM, offering a unique, hands-on experience designed and delivered by current UConn undergraduate women studying engineering and science. With guidance from UConn women faculty and staff, as well as input from our corporate and non-profit partners, the program now benefits from a contract with General Dynamics Electric Boat—supported by the Maritime Industrial Base—to further enrich our curriculum with real-world maritime engineering insights. It includes:
1. One-part hands-on STEM learning
2. One-part women's empowerment
3. One-part creativity and innovation
engagement
4. One-part camp fun and community building
1. One-part hands-on STEM learning
2. One-part women's empowerment
3. One-part creativity and innovation engagement
4. One-part camp fun and community building
SPARK Program 2025
-- Empowering The Next Generation Of Women Engineers --
Eligibility: Must be a current 5th – 7th grade female student during the school year (rising 6-8th graders). Applicants who are not in the grade range but are interested in the program are encouraged to apply to be placed on the waiting list
Cost:
$995 per week for residential students*
$695 per week for day campers
*We highly encourage campers to stay with us in the dorms so that we can build community. Our housing is a single-sex dorm for our program.
Partial & Total Financial Aid Are Available
For any questions, please contact engr-spark@uconn.edu
SPARK 2025 Weekly Programs
Session 1: Time Travel Through Tech!
June 21st - June 26th
Focus: Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Material Science
What if you could design the next big app, control robots, or create technology that changes the world?
Technology is advancing fast! AI, virtual reality, and smart devices are everywhere. This week, you’ll get hands-on experience in coding, electronics, and engineering, just like the innovators behind the world’s biggest tech breakthroughs. By the end of the week, you won’t just use technology you’ll understand how to build it.
Perfect for girls who love gaming, creating, designing, and solving puzzles.
Future Career Connection: Tech is one of the highest-paying and fastest-growing fields. Learning these skills now can open doors to incredible opportunities.
Project Description & Execution: Sparklers will use software to create sound effects that will later be used in their own mini movie.
Learning Outcomes: Understand the process of making a movie using Earsketch
Project Description & Execution: Learn about the magic that goes into making animated films. Sparklers will create stories and turn them into 2d animations using flipbooks and artificial intelligence (AI). This merges art and science together
Learning Outcomes: learn the fundamentals of animation using multi-media platforms
Project Description & Execution: Sparklers will use Scratch as a starting point for creating their own animation and movement on screen
Learning Outcomes: Learn a Coding Language – Scratch
Project Description & Execution: Sparklers will learn about logic and decision trees and apply this to making their own digital mystery
Learning Outcomes: Understand systematic decision making that’s useful in things like coding or electronics
Project Description & Execution: Using their collective knowledge from throughout the week, sparklers will create their own movie with the new skills they’ve learned. Sparklers will incorporate both visual and audio engineering techniques in their final products.
Learning Outcomes: Incorporate everything learned so far with innovative design
Session 2: Engineering the Impossible!
June 28th - July 3rd
Focus: Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Robotics, Water-Related Innovations
Think engineering is just about math and buildings? Think again.
This week, you’ll design and build futuristic machines, tackle extreme engineering challenges, and explore how engineering helps solve major real-world problems like designing self-cleaning water systems, building floating cities, and creating underwater robots to explore the ocean. Whether it’s robotics, transportation, or cutting-edge inventions, you’ll be creating solutions for the future.
Perfect for girls who love hands-on projects, problem-solving, and dreaming big.
Future Career Connection: Engineers are shaping everything from climate solutions to AI-powered robotics.
Operation: Save our Planet!
Join us to use STEM skills to design solutions to navigate climate change, search and rescue, and make an impact.
This Week Is Sponsored By A Grant From The NAVY (Thanks, Dr. Lexi Hain!), And Has Several Financial Aid Fellowships Available!
Focus: Mechanical Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Material Science, Aquatic Science
Project Description & Execution: Sparklers will help find dory using the science of light and water on one day
Learning Outcomes: Law of Refraction, Difference of sound underwater
Project Description & Execution: Sparklers will help find dory using the science of sound and sonar in water
Learning Outcomes: Learn how engineers have adpated to make sonar technology , Difference of Sound underwater, Hydroacoustics
Project Description & Execution: Sparklers will help save Moana and HeiHei by designing and constructing a boat
Learning Outcomes: Sparklers will learn how to build makeshift boats in groups of 2, while also learning about the material science behind boats, and how boat engines run
Project Description & Execution: Using the boat designed yesterday, Sparklers will then need to test the vessel and traverse across different densities of water, and different aquatic environments.
Learning Outcomes: Sparklers will learn about the material science behind boats and ships, and how the manipulation of water densities directly affects their ability to float on water.
Project Description & Execution: Atlantis needs a makeover! Sparklers will need to use a variety of filtration techniques in order to help clean up this sunken city.
Learning Outcomes: Sparkles will be able to learn hands on about the different techniques that are adopted to filter impure water and make it drinkable.
Session 3: Healing of the Future!
July 6th- July 11th
Focus: Biomedical Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering
What if you could help design a bionic hand or create materials that speed up healing?
Biomedical engineers are revolutionizing healthcare, inventing life-changing medical technology like robotic prosthetics, artificial organs, and smart bandages. This week, you’ll explore the exciting intersection of medicine, science, and engineering experimenting with real-world solutions that help people heal and thrive.
Perfect for girls who are interested in medicine, science, or creating technology that helps people.
Future Career Connection: The future of healthcare is technology-driven, and engineers are leading the way in medical breakthroughs.
Why Spark?
• Hands-on projects – Girls won’t just learn; they’ll build, code, and experiment.
• Real-world applications – Each week connects to future career paths in STEM.
• Exciting, high-energy activities – Science and engineering have never been this fun.
Explore The Action World Of Famous Female Super Heroes & How They Keep Theirs Worlds Safe And Up To Code
Focus: Civil Engineering, Materials Science, Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering
Project Name: “Is Your superhero really super?”
Project Description & Execution: Students will test their own strength as a super hero! They’ll use force sensors to measure the amount need to break through movie set walls
Learning Outcomes: measuring superheros force and accleration using basic physics
Project Name: Swinging Past The Spider-Verse Part 1
Project Description & Execution: Sparklers will learn about structural stability and the safety of buildings, bridges, and other infrastructure.
Learning Outcomes: SPARKlers will learn about material properties and balancing forces for stability
Project Name: Swinging Past The Spider-Verse – Part 2
Project Description & Execution: Sparklers will experiment and create different “artificial webbing” using different materials and goals
Learning Outcomes: Continued learning about materials
Project Name: Swinging Past The Spider-Verse Part 3
Project Description & Execution: Sparklers will test their webs across the spider verse set they designed in part 1 emphasizing concepts of structural integrity, material strength, and load-bearing capacity.
Learning Outcomes: Engineering Design process
Project Name: Superhero’s Sidekick: Forensics
Project Description & Execution: Sparklers will pick up where superheroes left off to help solve a crime. Using bones, we combine science and engineering to learn more about what might have happened
Learning Outcomes: Measurements, data tables, image analysis
SPARK 2024 Schedule
