Students show parents all about drones, virtual reality and engineering at STEM Achievers summer camp finale
GILLETTE — Over the last few weeks, junior high students got to travel the world — and beyond — during Gillette College’s STEM Achievers summer camp.
Thursday, their parents visited the college to see the fruits of their kids’ learning and labor, and possibly some slack from their kids’ tech-filled ramblings — but maybe not.
Dozens of rising sixth to eighth graders spent the last three weeks problem solving at the STEM Achievers summer camp, with many activities centered around engineering.
The biggest benefit for many of the students: getting to play with robots. But the camp encompassed much more than that. Kids strapped on VR goggles to fly drones and drive mini trucks, plotted blueprints for their virtual Mars colonies and schemed the best gear to traverse through jungles, rivers, pyramids and sand dunes.
Campers’ virtual labs gave them the ability to design their Mars camp on a computer and then explore using a VR headset and controllers.
Owen Mullaney showed off a robust Mars colony with food production, water silos and a coliseum for entertainment. It also featured portals to parts of Gillette College’s campus taken with a 360-degree camera.
“It’s just like ‘The Martian,’” Area 59 Director Ellen Peterson said.
With the goggles and controller, students could go to one part of their colony then teleport to the Pronghorn Center, for example.
Owen and his friend Finn Gee also designed a virtual reality map based on the hit horror movie, “Backrooms.” Its uncanny and eerie appearance was striking as its yellow, repetitive walls were contrasted by a monster — or a bright orange crab.
“I don’t know why that’s there,” Owen said.
Pronghorn Elementary School first grade teacher Sandra Pennington guided young explorers on their overlanding expedition.
The young engineers encountered overheating obstacles that required coding to detect temperature to monitor if their vehicle may overheat and creating a holder for their newly engineered sensor to keep it safe as they traversed the jungle’s dense vegetation and terrain.
Then they encountered a river where they were tasked with designing a safe bridge, and finally their biggest test, a mighty desert blocking each explorer’s path to a Mexican pyramid.
All explorers were given unique challenges and through cooperation between the teams of overlanders, combining each lesson in coding, design and engineering.
Peterson greeted parents and, while introducing the topics their kids have learned about, joked that moms and dads would finally get an opportunity to understand those conversations at the dinner table that make sense to their kid, but fly over the parents’ heads.
Students were also given the opportunity to learn to fly and make videos using drones.
They learned the exact terms for navigating a drone, such as roll or yaw, and each produced their own videos after getting their pilot’s license.
Gee showed off the metal tags every student got for demonstrating drone safety, getting their license and editing a video shot using the DJI Neo drone’s camera.
Some students went all out with their drone videos.
They capture selfies and soccer matches where students use the drone to push a ball into a goal in the college’s Tech Center.
Two students captured themselves juggling a hacky sack together from a bird’s-eye view.
Another one spared no resources in editing his video, boasting endorsements from Netflix and a Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or logo before showing off the college’s landscape and he and his partner’s drone soccer match.
Finn flipped through his rainbow of dog tags on the braided metal key chain he achieved for completing the STEM Achievers drone portion of the camp.
He couldn’t decide on his favorite part of camp as he held the keychain close to his chest.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s all been amazing.”
This story was published on June 23, 2026.
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