S.T.E.A.M. Festival of Light

More than 200 people came out for the S.T.E.A.M. Festival of Light on Sunday, December 10. The event, hosted by Community Day School and PJ Library Pittsburgh, was an afternoon of science, technology, engineering, art and math in celebration of Chanukah.

The event was funded by a grant from the SteelTree Fund of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Jewish Community Foundation.

According to Jennifer Bails, director of marketing and communications at Community Day School, families circled through stations to explore the science and beauty of light, building modular robots using Cubelets; exploring light through prisms; creating Lego/K’NEX dreidels; watching a Hanukkiah being created using a 3D printer; and designing light-generating circuits using the Arduino electronics platform.

Get The Jewish Chronicle Weekly Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up

The event culminated, she said, in a large-scale electronic candlelight-building challenge, with guest judges from Uber, Argo AI, Carnegie Robotics, and other technology firms in our region.

“Our goal was to bring together the community for a S.T.E.A.M. showcase similar to the wildly popular ‘Maker Faire’ with inquiry-based activities all centered around the values, traditions, and stories of Chanukah,” CDS Learning Innovation Coach Emily Wittenstein said in a statement. “With children participating from 20 different schools, it was exciting to bring together the Pittsburgh Jewish community for this unique event that honored our past while looking ahead toward our future.”

(Video courtesy of Community Day School)