junior program summer site : conversations : second session



	aric from ohio (8/1) Aric is a 7th grade residential student attending his first summer at the Junior Program. He appreciates having the opportunity to take two classes in engineering -- a subject that he is particularly interested in. Is this your first summer at Explo? Yeah, and I really like it so far. Great! What do you like about it? Well, I thought one of the coolest things was that as soon as I came here on the first day, I felt like I knew everybody. I felt like I had been here all along and I was coming back for a second session because everyone was so friendly and welcoming. That really stood out to me. So it has been easy to meet new people? Yeah. Especially with my hall. Everyone got to know each other really easily, and in my classes, too. It’s been really good. How are your classes going? Really well. My favorite is “Thrill Ride”. It’s a robotics class. We work with Lego robotics to make bumper cars. Now we’re doing rollercosters and eventually we’ll make a whole amusement park, so it’s going to be really great. What have you been working on for the last few days in that class? Well, last week we worked the entire week in teams of three to make bumper cars out of Legos, and then we actually got to go on the computer to program them. We had a whole derby to see which one was strongest and which one could last the longest. This week we’re using “Rollerscapes”, which I’ve never seen before but they’re really cool. They’re kind of like marble runs, and we’re going to have a super secret judge come in and tell us how they do. How did your car do in the derby? It came in second out of five cars, so it did pretty well. What’s your other class? “Imagineering”, which has been really cool because I’m really interested in engineering and architecture and all that stuff. We’ve talked about a lot of principles like tension, torque, and things like that that I was really curious about. Then, we do the coolest experiments to exemplify them. Like, today we made suspension bridges out of straws and pipe cleaners and stuff. Then, to test how strong they were, we tied washers to the pipe cleaners and hung them from the suspension bridge to see how many they could support. How many could they support? Ours got up to 90, but then we had to stop, so we’ll continue tomorrow and see how many they hold. Were you learning how to build the strongest structure? Yeah. We were focusing on bridges today, so we talked about the different types of bridges and then focused on principles that could make a bridge stronger. How are your classes at Explo different from your classes at school? Well, classes at school are pretty much just the basic math, English, history, science. Here, there are so many opportunities that I wouldn’t get to explore anywhere else. To take a class on engineering, which is one of my favorite subjects, is just really great. How are your teachers at Explo different from your schoolteachers? Well, first of all, they’re younger, so I think they can relate to us a lot more. The cool thing is that I’m fortunate enough to have Steven, who is one of my RA's, to be one of my teachers. I knew him before the class even started, so I was really comfortable with him. But even the teachers that I didn’t know [from my living group] have been really welcoming with, like, knowing everyone’s name. Little things like that make you feel more comfortable in the class. What is your residence hall like? There are nine of us and we’re all like brothers pretty much. There’s an occasional argument, but never anything big -- just things like who gets to shower at certain times. Every day during quiet time on our hall there’s something going on, like poker games or Connect Four tournaments. It has been a great bonding experience. Is it hard to live with roommates? I was a little nervous going into it, just because I was afraid of not getting along with them. It’s actually not hard, though. You don’t spend much time in your room besides sleeping, and my roommates are nice people. Have you ever been away from home before? The longest I’ve ever been away from home was on a school trip, which was five days. Explo has been a big step, but it has been really good. What’s the food like at Explo? It’s really great. They do a good job of giving us different choices every day. What do you think of the theme days? We’ve had two theme days so far: Harry Potter Day and Alien Invasion Day. Both of them have been really cool. The staff got really creative with setting up themed activities and dressing up in costumes. It has been really fun. Did you go to Blue Man Group last night? Yeah, I went last night and it was really, really amazing. I’ve heard about them before, but it was awesome to finally see the show. It was really funny and they did all these cool stunts. It was only seventh graders that went, so that was cool. What was your favorite part? My favorite part was that they had this percussion instrument that they used, which was pretty much just plumbing tubes of different lengths. They beat them with paddles and made all these different rhythms and songs. Have you been on any other cool trips? Yeah! Last weekend I went to the Boston Duck Tours, and I’d never been to Boston before, so that was awesome to see the city for the first time. On Sunday I went to Water Country, which is a really cool water park. The seventh graders got to walk around by themselves, so we got to do whatever we want. It was really cool. If you were talking to someone who was thinking about coming to Explo next year, what would you tell them? I would tell them that Explo is a really great place to learn new things and make new friends. If you feel uncomfortable at all with the concept of sleep-away or anything, don’t worry about it because the students and the staff here are amazing and you’ll feel like you’re at home the first day you’re here. What do you think the most valuable thing will be that you will take away with you this summer? Obviously, I’m going to take away a lot of new friends, but I think the experience of being away from my parents for a long time is going to help with my character as a person. If Explo were to have mascot, what would it be? Well, we have the Explo alien, which has been doing some of the assemblies recently. Two of the staff members combined to make a two-headed monster. That would be the best mascot. more conversations > first session \| second session