John Bradley and Josie Schermerhorn, of the Vassar Education Collaboration (VEC), have secured a Youth Grant from the City of Poughkeepsie to support Vassar After School Tutoring (VAST). As part of VEC, VAST runs year-round programming for Poughkeepsie middle schoolers. This consists of a summer camp, as well as after school enrichment three days a week. The summer camp will take place three days a week for three weeks from July 11 to July 27. Each day campers will engage in a mix of science, engineering, and history activities.

The overarching summer project is building and programming Lego Spike robots. Each group will decide on a challenge that they think the robot could help people overcome, and then at the end of the camp will present how they created a robot to respond to this challenge. Campers will also participate in other STEM activities such as running experiments to learn about chemical reactions. Each week, campers will explore a different time and place in history and do hands-on activities to gain a better understanding of how people lived then.