National Electronics Museum

National Electronics Museum Internship:

Pioneer Camp

               I was hired by the National Electronics Museum as an education assistant in February of 2017. I really was only responsible for giving tours and assisting the Museum Educator with the various workshops that NEM offers. I was also working part time at the American Visionary Art Museum, and planning on beginning research for my thesis over the summer. This left me with a bit of a problem when it came to also completing an internship over the summer. As the school semester began to wind down the position of Museum Educator opened up at NEM, and I applied to it. I did receive the position, and that allowed me to quit at AVAM. However, it still left me with figuring out what exactly my internship would be over the summer. NEM has an internship program that is run by Alice Donahue and these interns split time between archiving and education. Since I was now in charge of education at NEM that did not make a whole lot of sense, and I did not and do not want an internship that focuses on inventorying and archiving. The majority of my history experience is in archives and I wanted an internship that would expand my resume and skillset. So, I spoke to both Alice and Dr. Meringolo about ideas for my internship. Dr. Meringolo suggested that maybe there was some special project that I could work on as part of my job; one that was not just giving tours and leading workshops. This made me immediately think of NEM’s yearly Pioneer Camp, and after discussing it with Alice Pioneer Camp became my internship project.

               Pioneer Camp has been going on since 2007 and has traditionally been held twice each summer at NEM. Each session has been two half days where kids learn about some principle or facet of electronics or magnetism. Previous years had focused on communications, magnetism, or rockets. My internship is to develop this year’s Pioneer Camp and then lead the camp each session. Each session is going to have 40-45 campers from 8-10 years old, since this is traditionally what it has been. Earlier I mentioned that Pioneer Camp has been two half days, and this has actually been a primary complaint from parents. Some parents cannot pick their children up in the middle of the day and wanted camp to last all day. So this year I decided that Pioneer Camp will be two full, 8 hour days.

               This first month of my internship has been devoted to planning Pioneer Camp. The theme this year will be the Electromagnetic spectrum and it will be held on July 26-27 and August 15-16. My whole idea for this theme is it allows me to use radio, light, and infrared experiments so it was broad enough for me to get enough activities for a two day camp. This was important because my initial theme was just Radio and I really struggled with finding enough activities that were radio focused for 8-10 year olds. Since we were trying to keep costs down and focusing on a younger age group I immediately ruled out soldering workshops and activities, which eliminated a bunch of the suggested radio activities I found. So I had two choices, broaden the topic of pick an entirely new one. NEM has its own licensed Amateur Radio station/club and I really wanted to leverage that for Pioneer Camp. So, instead of changing the topic entirely I expanded from Radio to the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Lights! Radio! Wavelengths? became the new title for Pioneer Camp and allowed me to broaden the types of activities for the camp.

The majority of this month has been in finding/creating enough activities to fill two full days. I went through the workshops binder the museum created, multiple activities books the previous Educator had, and scoured the internet for ideas. I selected 23 different experiments and activities for Pioneer Camp. The campers are going to make their own crystal radios, investigate infrared, learn about radar, try out amateur radio, and much more. I have the instructions for all of these activities, their materials lists, and the cost of the materials. I was also in charge of developing the registration site/link, and the price per camper. In past years Pioneer Camp has been $45 per camper, and my parts alone cost over $60 per person. With that in mind, I went to Alice to help me hash out a price and in the end we came up with $80 per camper. That is less than twice what past camps have cost, even though we have doubled the length of the camp, and it still allows for a profit for the museum. Once that was settled, we took it to the Director, Michael Simons, for approval. Michael agreed and then Alice helped me set up the registration on Constant Contact. I also needed to create a flyer for Pioneer Camp. This turned out to be a learning experience as I created one using a previous year’s template, and quite frankly it sucked. Michael, pointed out that one of my co-workers went to school for graphic design and that it would be better to ask them. They could do it in 30 minutes, while it would take me hours.

Now that June is coming to a close Pioneer Camp has been finalized, and we already have 20 campers registered between the two sessions. I still need to finalize the two day agenda for the camp, prepare a lesson/overview of the electromagnetic spectrum, and I will need to order the materials and prep the mall for the camp. But it has been a great experience planning this camp, and it is exactly the type of work that I want to learn how to do/add to my resume. I have worked/interned in archives for years and while I don’t hate it, I do not want that to be my sole career path. Learning about museum education and the creation of educational activities and camps is something I really wanted to do while I was back in school. So far this internship is letting me do just that, and I am enjoying it more than I ever did working in the archives. I am hoping as my internship progresses and the camp actually happens I will still feel this way, but even if I don’t I am extremely thankful for the chance to broaden my profession skill set and experience.