by Levi Brandenburg
The Paducah Sun
June 8, 2022
Used with permission.
As the school year ends, the Paducah Innovation Hub continues to educate students, offering summer programs for them in a wide variety of topics.
The programs are offered through the month of June and vary widely from ceramics and making your own Chia pets and clay whistles to introductions to 3D printing and courses on Python coding.
There are programs for grades 1-12 with individual events for several age groups in that range.
“So far its been going great, you know, we’re happy to make collaboration with students outside the district, as well as the students in the district,” said Andre Meadows, Innovation Hub assistant principal.
“We’re also giving tours of the entire facility to parents who are interested during the event.”
Programs are also split into two groups with one group free for Paducah students and another available to the public in that age group for a small fee.
“Paducah city students get to attend for free,” Meadows said. “Anyone outside of the district has to pay a small fee. That fee is to pay our instructors for their time.”
Meadows also explained some of the events that would be happening as well, like the Sphero course for first through fourth graders.
“Sphero is a programmable robot,” he said. “It’s like a little ball that rolls and changes colors, but it does whatever they program it to do. In the course they will have different challenges like making it around a race track or through a map, and they’re going to have to program it to turn left and to turn right.”
For older students, there are also more complicated programs like computer construction, 3D printing and a flight and space course.
“We also have a section called build your own computer,” Meadows said. “We’re going to be using some old repurposed computers as a district and use them to scrap parts together into their own computer that participants can take home and use.”
3D printing and the flight and space camp also have unique curriculum for students as well, with the 3D printing course teaching students a new software for making 3D images and the flight camp involving them making and flying their own rockets.
For more information, visit the Innovation Hub’s website at paducahinnovationhub.com.