An engineered bazooka designed to launch candy, a 3D-printed novel board game, an ecological experiment with fish, and a magnetically powered trebuchet. You may guess that these are all projects designed by undergraduate or even graduate level students for a class. However, these projects are the curiosity-driven creations of middle schoolers as part of the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) TRAIN (Transdisciplinary Research Across Institutional Near-peers) program, which just completed its third successful year.

When one imagines what 6th-8th grade students might be interested in, these projects may not immediately come to mind: studying metabolism in the Minecraft universe, investigating whether toxic frogs know they are toxic, printing 3D corals, building a robot that can deliver snacks or one that can plant seeds, and designing an anti-drone weapons device. And yet, these six studies were successfully completed by students from Franklin STEAM Academy.