All hands on tech - and science, engineering and math

Nine-year-old Shakiah McFadden is flexing her mental muscles at the Charleston STEM Festival. Harlee Onovbiona, a research program assistant at the Medical University of South Carolina, has hooked her up with a headset designed to use brain waves to control a ball in a game called Mindflex. In a matter of seconds, the little blue ball is floating, apparently in response to Shakiah’s fierce focus.

Meanwhile, 8-year-old Noah Schroder and his 6-year-old sister, Elise, are trying out Coke floats at another MUSC table. Not the kind you drink. The kind you learn from. This table is run by the South Carolina Clinical & Translational Research Institute, or SCTR, which is also part of MUSC and sponsor of the festival for the past 3 years. The kids watch as a regular soda goes into one container of water and a diet soda is dunked into another. 

Noah describes what happens next. “The one with sugar went down and the one without sugar floated. It’s because the one with sugar has density and the other doesn’t.” 

SCTR’s Tara Pittman, who served as co-chair for the festival’s event program committee, says it's a great way to connect kids with the fun side of science and show them possible careers they might not otherwise know about. “One of the biggest goals for the STEM Festival is promoting the STEM workforce.”

That could lead to more kids from the Lowcountry focusing on STEM-related interests and classes. “That way, we’re not always having to recruit from outside,” Pittman says. “Teaching them at a young age to get excited about it, learning that MUSC has so many different career opportunities that most people don’t recognize outside of doctor or nurse. So this is special with all of the research representation. They can see how many careers, even if you don’t want to be a clinician, lie inside of MUSC.”

The MUSC researchers were among about 80 exhibitors at Saturday’s event at Exchange Park in Ladson, South Carolina. The event is an initiative of the Lowcountry STEM Collaborative, which is linked to South Carolina's Coalition for Mathematics and Science. It was free and included games and activities for kids of all ages. More than 13,000 people attended the event.

Shakiyah eventually let the Mindflex ball drop, but event organizers hope what she saw and learned will stay on her mind.