10 Best Engineering Summer Camps for Middle School Students

Offer your kids fun and useful summer activity by sending them to some of the best engineering summer camps for middle school students. If they are already interested in science and engineering, summer camps are an ideal place to broaden their knowledge through entertainment and learning at some of the top US universities.

An early introduction to such a serious scientific field that is engineering is a great idea, especially at an early age. One of the fields of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education, engineering also has multiple applications in a variety of disciplines. There are many engineering branches: chemical engineering, biomedical engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, civil engineering, etc. The main characteristic of a discipline having ‘engineering’ in its name is applying mathematical, scientific and practical principles to certain scientific (or social) fields in order to improve, and research them, inventing something new. It probably sounds very broad, but that’s because it is a vast and innovating field. Chemical engineers, for example, work on developing new chemical improvements in petroleum research for example. Civil engineers work on infrastructure and building. Biomedical engineers work on new technologies for improving health and health care.

So, kids interested in literally any field of science can participate in some engineering summer camps, where they will get basic knowledge on engineering application in sciences. Also, for some future thinking here are 10 Best Engineering Camps for High Schoolers.

We have searched for summer engineering camps for middle school students on places like Engineering Education Service Center,  NASA, TeenLife and also on colleges’ individual pages like Boston University or Michigan University. Then, in order to make the list of the best ones, we compared the rating of institutions with the help of ranking from websites such as Graduates Hotline, U.S News and Top Universities.

The leading university in this field, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), unfortunately does not offer any engineering programs and summer camps for middle school. Leaving that one for later on, choose some of the best engineering summer camps for middle school students we have picked for you:

10. Berkeley Girls in Engineering

The reason Berkeley is in the last place on our list is not because of bad ranking (it is no. 3 of the top engineering colleges in 2017), but because it only offers middle school summer camps for girls in engineering.

9. University of Northern Iowa

The University of Northern Iowa offers an interesting summer camp in the field of robotics. Through the course, children will get introduced to the basics of STEM while working on designing, building and programming robots.

8. University of Washington

Apart from many interesting summer camps and programs, Washington University offers new STEM summer program for 4-8 graders. This is a serious 6-week program that will introduce children to basics of STEM and the program also continues during the school year, by monthly meetings.

7. Zero Robotics

Another great way to learn engineering basics through entertaining robotics. Middle school summer program is being held in multiple locations (CA, FL, GA, ID, MA and to be expanded), and consists of a 5-week program, where children learn through programming.

6. University of Colorado

The University of Colorado offers STEM summer camps for children ages 5-18. Children will learn from experienced instructors, will be introduced into lab work, and provided hands-on activities which make learning whole lot easier and more interesting.

5. Boston University

Boston University offers one of the best engineering summer camps for middle school students, not only in engineering but in many other fields also. The programs consist of usually one week long activities, where children get introduced to their chosen field.

4. Digital Media Academy

Digital Media Academy, the next one on the list of best engineering summer camps for middle school students has been around since 2002, offering all-level education across the US and Canada. They have innovative programs and qualified instructors and interesting project-based learning programs. There is a variety of summer camps for middle schoolers at Digital Media Academy, and engineering is related to robotics.

3. University of Wisconsin – Madison

This university has a long, 45-year history of Engineering Summer Program (ESP), although participants can be those students that are going to be high school juniors (or seniors) in the following year. The camp is a 6 weeks residential program that includes scientific learning and also field trips, guest lectures, and industry site visits.

2. iD Tech

iD Tech has 18 year experience in teaching technology through summer camps. iD Tech’s STEM camps are located in many prestigious universities such as MIT, UCLA and Stanford. Oriented towards technology, this is a great place to start looking for summer camps. There are camps for all ages (starting 6), and also all-girls summer camp.

1. University of Michigan

The University of Michigan is among the top of engineering universities in the US, so it deserves the number one on our list offering some of the best engineering summer camps for middle school students. Camps are part of the Summer Engineering Academy, a choice of middle and high school engineering programs, and there are also Spring Programs. There is also an opportunity for a low income students interested in STEM to participate in programs, as part of GEAR UP program.