BrainSTEM returns to UND with a bigger, bolder day of hands-on discovery

October 17, 2025

Second-annual event at UND welcomes seventh-graders to campus for robots, spaghetti bridges, CSI science and more

A group of middle school students work together to build a structure made of uncooked spaghetti noodles and marshmallows. — A day full of hands-on activities makes this field trip to UND productive and memorable. Photo by Paige Prekker/UND College of Engineering & Mines.

On Oct. 9, the Memorial Union social staircase felt like a pep rally for curiosity.

Seventh-graders spilled onto campus, ready for BrainSTEM — a full day of hands-on workshops across the University of North Dakota. By day’s end, they’d have extracted DNA from strawberries, programmed light sequences on microcontrollers, built and load-tested spaghetti bridges, explored how robots “see,” and learned why an airplane wing works.

“If something today sparks interest within you, don’t be afraid to lean into it,” encouraged College of Engineering & Mines Dean Ryan Adams as students were welcomed into the Memorial Union for the eventful day’s kick-off. “You’re going to meet real engineers, scientists and researchers today — people who were just like you at one point. Have fun, ask questions, and stay curious. That’s what today is all about.”

Hosted in partnership with the North Dakota Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), BrainSTEM is designed to spark early interest in science, technology, engineering and math — especially among students who don’t always see themselves represented in those fields.

Two middle school students partake in a hands-on activity to build their own model section of a plane's wing using everyday items including Popsicle sticks and tinfoil. — In the Airfoil Assembly Challenge, students built their own model section of a plane’s wing.

A campus-wide lab for the day

In labs, shops and classrooms, UND faculty and students turned foundational concepts into tactile moments:

CSI: Junior Investigators Workshop: Aprons and hairnets on, students isolated DNA from strawberries and learned how genetic evidence supports real-life investigations.
Spaghetti Bridge Activity: In classic engineering fashion, teams designed, built, and then broke their noodle spans—learning about loads, trusses and failure the fun way.
Tech Tinker Lab: Students coded LED animations while connecting circuits, logic and automation to everyday tech.
How Robots See the World: Cameras, lidar and sensor fusion came to life as students tested object detection and learned how autonomous systems “perceive.”
Airfoil Assembly Challenge: Paper, foam and imagination became mini wing sections, sparking chatter about airfoils, angle of attack and Bernoulli’s principle.
Water Treatment Challenge: Blue water, limited budget: students optimized clarity vs. cost, learning tradeoffs that real plants face every day.
Phun with Fisics & Möbius Strip Magic: From counterintuitive surfaces to momentum, these sessions made math and physics feel like actual magic.
Color-Changing Pigments & Paints: Natural dyes met acids and bases; students painted take-home art that shifted hues with pH.
Science Behind the Diagnosis: Medical laboratory science opened a window into the testing that informs patient care.
Biopolymer Design: Chemical engineering showed up in slime and juice boba, turning polymers into a kid-friendly design problem.
Will it Build?: A 3D-printable concrete mix demo connected materials science to tomorrow’s construction sites.

A woman speaks to a group of listening students at the University of North Dakota Memorial Union Social Staircase. — Professional Engineer Alexa Ducioame, Project Manager at Moore Engineering, Inc., greets students at the second BrainSTEM event held at UND.

Learning by doing — and by seeing yourself here

“Our brains take in about 11 million pieces of information a second, but we only consciously process 40 per second,” explained Professional Engineer Alexa Ducioame of Moore Engineering and founder of BrainSTEM. Ducioame explains that the brain takes shortcuts to process everything else, creating what we refer to as bias. Sometimes bias can be beneficial, but it can also lead to implicit biases about people around us — and even ourselves.

Workshop leaders included UND professors and college students from underrepresented groups in STEM, offering role models as well as real-world context. Ducioame emphasized the importance of seeing STEM leaders from diverse backgrounds in a simple yet powerful statement:

“Because everyone belongs in STEM.”

Reaching students earlier, with real hands-on experiences and real role models, helps them imagine futures in labs, on design teams, in hospitals and on job sites. It also reflects UND’s commitment to learning, discovery and service — meeting students where they are and inviting them into careers that solve problems and improve lives.

A researcher at the University of North Dakota demonstrates laboratory experiment with middle school students. — In the Water Treatment Challenge, students were challenged to treat the blue water in the cheapest and cleanest way.

Powered by partners

Events like BrainSTEM succeed because the community shows up. This year’s sponsors included Bolton & Menk, Braun Intertec, EAPC, Heyer Engineering, John Deere, Kraus Anderson, Lowry Engineering, Moore Engineering, SRF Consulting, Stantec, WFW, UND College of Arts & Sciences, UND College of Engineering & Mines, and the UND Department of Civil Engineering.

Written by Paige Prekker // UND College of Engineering & Mines