ENVISION members Emil Annevelink, James Carpenter, Drew Kuhn, and Aleczandria Tiffany, did a Zoom outreach at Franklin STEAM Academy to share the science behind breadmaking and their experiences as PhD students at Illinois. To check out more, I-STEM has written a full-length article about the event! Click here to see the article. ENVISION is excited to be able to continue outreach even during a pandemic!
Creativity Night with ENVISION Members!
ENVISION hosted a “paint” night where members could express their creativity. The event was held over zoom and members without paints used other mediums to replicate art from Offshoot Beer Co. We hope to see more members during our next social and creativity events!
Featured art from Ki Yun Lee, Aleczandria Tiffany, Marley Dewey, and Mohamed Mousa (left to right).
STEAM Night at MLK Elementary
ENVISION partnered with Graduate Engineers Diversifying Illinois (GEDI), the Mechanical Science and Engineering Department (UIUC), and the UIUC chapter of National Society of Black Engineers for a night dedicated to hands-on STEM and Art activities. Elementary school students were able to get involved in hands-on activities from anamorphic art to catapult design.
Principal Scholars Program
ENVISION partnered with the Principal Scholar Program (PSP) to welcome over a hundred middle school students to interact in three break-out sessions about circuitry, aerodynamics, and structures.
I-STEAM Live Event
Envision partnered with the Principal Scholar Program (PSP) to welcome over a hundred middle school students from Champaign-Urbana and Chicago areas to create a day-long symposium that highlighted the diversity of engineering fields. Envision hosted three break-out sessions that taught students about circuitry, aerodynamics, and structures. Each break-out session corresponded to a different engineering discipline and encouraged students to design, prototype, and work in teams.
Orpheum Museum: Fun House Art
ENVISION hosted an event on November 11, 2017 at the Orpheum Museum that used curvature to explore reflections and transformations. We had several hands-on activities where kids (and adults!) could learn about basic optics, math transformations, and art.
-Kids learned about how curvature can affect how light reflects
-Students tried to line up beans in a curved and straight line by using a curved reflection
-Attendees got to see how distorted images were corrected using a curved reflective surface.
Other activities included making anamorphic art and taking a picture in cartesian coordinates and transforming it into polar coordinates with a computer program. Thanks to all of our volunteers who helped out!
ECIRMAC Polymer Event
ENVISION partnered with ECIRMAC (East Central Illinois Refugee Mutual Assistance Center) to hold a polymer bouncy ball activity on November 11. Students learned about polymerization and examples of commonly used polymers, and made their own polymer bouncy balls. 
I-STEM Live Symposium
In collaboration with the Principal Scholars Program (PSP), ENVISION hosted three hands-on breakout sessions at the I-STEM Live Conference. Over 40 middle school students from the Champaign-Urbana area came to Siebel Center and participated in three activities:
-Laser Obstacle Course: The students learned about light reflection by making an obstacle course with lasers and mirrors!
-Magnetic Slime: The students learned about polymers through making slime, and studied how adding iron oxide powder made the blob engulf magnets!
-Foldscopes and Bug Analysis: The students used Foldscopes (origami microscopes) to analyze crickets, mosquitoes, ticks and night crawlers!
Thank you to Dot Silverman and everyone at the CU Fab Lab who helped make the foldscopes!
Thank you to ENVISION members who volunteered and everyone in PSP who organized this amazing event!