Nearly 100 rising fourth and fifth graders spent a week in early August building space capsules and programming robots at the Lower Merion School District's Elementary STEM Camp.

The weeklong camp, themed around aerospace engineering, had students working in teams through the Engineering Design Process, a six-step framework the district uses to teach problem-solving: ask, imagine, plan, create, test, and improve. The district announced the program on Wednesday, Aug. 26.

LMSD draws from six elementary schools across the township, serving approximately 8,518 students districtwide.

Campers built custom space capsules and landing modules meant to survive simulated planetary landings. They crafted utensils adapted for zero-gravity dining and folded paper airplanes to test lift and drag. On a "test pad," students launched straw rockets, then measured how design changes affected trajectory and flight distance. They collected and analyzed the data themselves.

The robots were a hit, too. Campers programmed them to navigate obstacles across simulated extraterrestrial terrain, reinforcing the same iterative engineering cycle they used at every other station.

A female United States Marine Corps pilot visited the camp during the week. She shared stories from the cockpit and explained the physics of flight to students. Her central message tied back to the "improvement" stage of the engineering process: military aviators continuously analyze performance and refine strategies. She urged campers to treat design revisions as steps toward success rather than failures.

The camp fits the district's broader push toward hands-on learning. In an Aug. 4 technology update, Superintendent Dr. Frank Ranelli wrote that the district is committed to using technology purposefully while preserving human interaction, collaboration, and hands-on learning experiences.

The 2026–2027 school year begins Tuesday, Sept. 8.