LAWRENCE COUNTY- Lawrence County Superior STEAM 4-H Club, Inc. (Superior STEAM) is a year-long youth development program through the Lawrence County Purdue 4-H Extension Office. They aim
to inspire and teach the next generation of scientists, artists, engineers, innovators, and leaders. The club offers various activities to expose students of all ages to science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) principles.
Superior STEAM has several Annual Pipeline Programs (APPs) that are free and open to the public. One of the upcoming events is STEAM Week, which is the third year the organization will be hosting this event. This year’s STEAM Week theme will follow the 2025-26 FIRST® Robotics theme around archeology and paleontology. STEAM Week is June 2nd to June 7th at 1301 I St in Bedford. It is free and open to any youth 4-18 years old.
This year’s STEAM Week is being called STEAMOLOGY. Attendees will become archeologists for the week and uncover clues. Each night, they will unearth different elements to decode who they are and rebuild them to learn the history. Monday’s dig site is the Egyptian Pyramids. On Tuesday, the kids will travel south to Machu Picchu. On Wednesday, they travel back in time to Pompeii. Thursday, they travel the old roads to Rome. They better be careful on Friday, though, lotta teeth on those Jurassic beasts. Saturday is a fum (yes, fum) game night; bring any game you want to share with the group.
Also coming up is the FIRST® Robotics off-season. FIRST® Robotics is changing its off-season competition structure this year. In the past, organizations would host their off-season events independently of FIRST®. However, FIRST® has now changed it to be Premier Events. Superior STEAM’s capstone team, Certified Tech Freaks (CTF), was invited to be one of the teams at the Kentucky FIRST® Run for Robots event in Lexington. The team’s off-season meetings have changed from workshop learning to preparing for this internationally attended tournament.
The tournament is set up for typical judging for awards and robot matches. CTF will submit a five-minute video presentation about the team and their robot. This video answers questions about how the team operates, how they create partnerships, recruit mentors and members, and design, build, iterate, and use the robot to accomplish the season tasks. They will then compete in a two-day tournament in one of two divisions against the other 63 teams from 24 states, a US territory, and six countries.
The team will host a Pasta Dinner Fundraiser with authentic sauces on May 31st at 508 Fellowship Dr in Bedford from 12 pm to 4 pm to raise funds necessary to attend the tournament. The CTF team members are Superior STEAM club leaders. These youth leaders decided to make the club free for all members a couple of years ago. This means the club will pay for all team members to attend the tournament. The club and team ask that any donations be payable to the Lawrence County Superior STEAM 4-H Club, Inc. Donations can be sent to 5121 US Hwy 50 East, Bedford, IN, or brought to the dinner and given to a team member or mentor. Donations are also tax-deductible through the club’s non-profit status. A receipt can be mailed to the address provided or at the dinner. The team and club are grateful for the support from the community for the next generation of scientists, artists, and engineers, innovators, and leaders.
