The robotics engineering course is designed for high-school students to provide them with understanding of robotics as an engineering discipline. The participating students will learn about a number of newly emerging robotics technologies and their impacts on a variety of areas ranging from industrial sectors, such as manufacturing, medical, defense; home assistance to elderly and disabled people; to improving learning for autistic children/students. The main goal of the course is to motivate the students in pursuing robotics as an engineering discipline by providing them an introduction to behind the scenes science and art of robotics. The course will involve interactive and fun-filled group sessions that include video lectures, interacting with real world robots, and hands-on programming.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the robotics as an engineering discipline, state of the art in robotics and the relevant skills and knowledge required to become a roboticist.
• Describe the nature and type of research work conducted in robotics in various state of the art robotics disciplines and the impact of those on our world.
• Develop problem solving, critical thinking, and programming skills.

• Interactive introductory lectures on history of robotics and overview of robotics engineering as an interdisciplinary field.
• An overview of the three main areas of robotics engineering using a mix of video tutorials and class discussions. The areas are: Bio-robots, Human-robot interaction, Autonomous robots
  
• An invigorating hands-on experience of discovering the intricacies of electrical circuit wiring, programming on microcontrollers, and robot building using kits.
• Interaction with real world robots

Ashwin Dani received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Florida (UF), Gainesville, FL, USA, in 2008 and 2011, respectively. After graduation from Ph.D., he was a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA. In 2013, he joined4 the faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) as Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA, where he is currently an Associate Professor. His research interests related to robotics engineering include human–robot collaboration, autonomous navigation of robots, nonlinear estimation and control, and machine learning. Dr. Dani actively participates in outreach and teaching activities related to robotics at UConn and is an active researcher in the field of controls and robotics.

Data science is a fast developing science of extracting meaningful information from massive data for better decision-making. It is interdisciplinary by nature, involving statistics, computing, and domain knowledge. Important principles of data science will be elaborated through interactive games and real applications in this course.

Students will have a basic understanding of the essential components of data science as well as the basic computing skills needed to explore this field further independently. The fun, game-based introductions will engage students' interest in data science.

• understand most important principles in data science;
• learn the basics of data science computing skills - data manipulation, visualization, and analysis;
• program in R to run simulations of games;
• practice on real applications with data from climate change to sports.

Prerequisites: Two years of High School Science and Math through Algebra II  with a grade of C or higher

Marine scientist strive to understand the properties of the ocean and coastal waters. This understanding will allow us to make decisions about how to protect marine life and sustain ocean resources. To do this, marine scientists make observations and collect data on plant and animal diversity, ocean temperatures, currents, chemistry, and geology.

This hands-on course will have you making these same observations both out on the Long Island Sound (LIS), along the shore, in the laboratory and on the computer. Over the week you will study fish diversity in a nearby cove and marine invertebrate inhabitants of our rocky intertidal as well as seagrass and seaweed populations. You will conduct plankton tows and study our campus tidal pools. Dissections and laboratory experiments will inform you about the physiology and adaptations of local marine animals. We will collect data on the chemical and physical environment using instrumentation and sensors. Highlights of the hands-on nature of the course are listed below.

By the end of the week you will have learned and worked with many different types of equipment and instruments. You will conducted lab work and instrumental analysis. However, the key to being a good scientist is to be curious and ask good questions. You will use math, test hypothesis and apply reasoning to interpret your data and explain your observations. You can then begin to answer some of these questions and generate new ones. This is the foundation of marine ecology. We will be using this approach throughout the week. Finally, we will converge all our topics, data and observations to develop a better appreciation of the marine environment and create a sustainability plan for eastern LIS. This will also involve the critical thinking which we will have incorporated throughout the week as well as creativity.

Our goals for you are:

1. That you leave the program with a better understanding of how scientists discover and explain the workings of the natural world
2. That you learn how oceanography helps us to appreciate and manage our planet’s resources
3. To understand that marine ecology is the interaction of marine organisms with each other as well as their physical and chemical environment
4. To appreciate that the survival of marine life depends upon our stewardship of the oceans
5. To always be curious and think critically

• You will learn the properties of marine waters using instrumentation and laboratory experiments
• Small boat trips are used for observation of eel grass beds and seaweed distribution
• Fish seining and plankton tows will give you further information about biodiversity in eastern LIS
• Dissections of fresh and preserved specimens will inform you about animal adaptations
• Influence of environmental parameters on animal physiology will be studied through laboratory experiments

This summer experience program focused on Earth and Environmental Science, high school students will explore the field via a course bridging camp and college-level study. Brought to you by UConn Department of Earth Sciences Faculty, Dr. Ouimet and Dr. Hren, students will have the opportunity to work side-by-side with field researchers and experts.

Geoscientists study all aspects of the Earth, including its history, structure, rocks, soils, rivers, oceans and atmosphere. The UConn Environmental Science pre-college summer course will introduce this wide-ranging discipline and discuss how earth and environmental scientists play a crucial role in understanding and making predictions about a diverse range of earth resources, processes and hazards, from mineral deposits to earthquakes to floods and climate change. Why is this important? Earth’s ecology is closely linked to sustainability and environmental science is key to this pursuit.

This Earth and Environmental summer course for high school students will integrate:

• lectures and dynamic learning modules on background geoscience material
• field and lab demonstrations
• collection and analysis of rock, soil and water samples
• guest visits from Geoscience faculty across the wide range topics in the discipline

• The many aspects of Geological & Environmental Science and the diverse methods and approaches Geoscientists used to study the Earth and Environment.
• How to analyze the mineralogy and environmental geochemistry of rocks, soil, water and sediments.
• How to understand and interpret the geologic history of Connecticut.

Michael Hren, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Geosciences

Dr. Hren (Mike) is also an Associate Professor of Geosciences at UConn. His research and teaching is focused on understanding how Earth’s climate, ecosystems, and environment evolve over time and how Earth’s history informs its future. His work takes him to mountain ranges around the globe, from the high peaks of Patagonia to the mountains of Tibet to the Sierra Nevada of California, where he and his students collect sediment, rocks, soils and water to bring back to UConn for analysis. He is the director of the Stable Isotope and Organic Molecular Biogeochemistry laboratory, and when not traveling for research, can be found working in the laboratory with students and colleagues from UConn and visitors from around the world analyzing modern and ancient plants, sediments and even an occasional woolly mammoth, to understand Earth and life through time.