This morning, after getting a 7:45 wakeup call, we got ready and ate breakfast. After breakfast, we headed down to Friday Harbor High School Stem Lab. There, Derek Smith, whom we met earlier in the program, showed us the tools and inventions that he and his students work on and created, such as the 3D printer, virtual reality headset skateboards, & ROV.

Derek was very generous with the equipment and let us play around with our own 3D design for our earwig experiments.

The one that amazed everybody the most was the electric car that his students worked on and mostly completed. Derek told us how proud he was of his students for doing something so amazing with hardly any help. He told us that it is almost 100% ready to be driven. The only problem he has encountered was the brakes. He is very excited to drive it.

Another creation that he had in his class was the Augmented Reality Sandbox. When we first saw it we thought it was just an ordinary sandbox. We were all wrong once he told us what it can do. It can teach people simple earth science concepts—as you manipulate the sand you can see topographical details come out—you can even simulate rainy conditions!— but it can also be there just for fun. When we got a chance to play with it, we couldn’t leave it because it was just so much fun. 

After visiting the Stem Lab, we headed back to our temporary home and we had lunch. During lunch we talked and played games. After lunch, we started to talk about our upcoming projects that we individually are going to do. We also reviewed some of the scientific vocabulary we have learned so far and met to discuss a New York Times article with the provocative title: There Is No Scientific Method.

Later we had exploration time, and some of us used the time to take a quick nap before dinner.