Behind the Scenes of STEM Nights (Interviews with Mentors and Students)

Every month, our team hosts STEM Night at our workspace. During these events, we teach students in grades 2-5 STEM topics and conduct activities that reinforce their knowledge in a fun and interactive way.

To prepare for these workshops, our STEM Night leaders devote significant time to organizing and researching each topic and activity. This blog post highlights the commitment of our STEM Night leads, Rhea, Saathvik, and Vedha, as well as STEM Night mentors, Norm Johnson and Swapnil Deshpande, for hosting STEM Nights every month. We asked each of them two questions about their involvement with STEM Nights.

Mentor Norm Johnson has volunteered at FIRST for eight years and has been a team mentor for three years. Mr. Norm has helped oversee STEM Nights for two years.

Q1: What is your role in preparing for STEM Nights?

“I oversee STEM Nights as a mentor. We choose what day to host the event and topic choices to teach the elementary students at the beginning of the month. We make sure flyers and sign-up forms are ready and send them to elementary schools for inclusion in parent newsletters around ten days before the event. That’s the first responsibility. Then we collect participation forms from parents and finish organizing the STEM Night activities. When they arrive on the day of the STEM Night, Mr. Deshpande and I register and verify registration forms.”

Q2: What was your favorite activity from our STEM Nights?

“I really enjoyed the hand activity from our 2025 October STEM Night, where students got to make different layers of the hand and veins, and could move the hand. In fact, at my church, I wanted to duplicate that activity, but it was a little too complicated to do there, but it was still a good activity.”

Swapnil Deshpande started as a parent volunteer in 2018 and began mentoring FLL teams. Mr. Deshpande has been mentoring our team and overseeing STEM Nights for the past two years.

Q1: What is your role in preparing for STEM Nights?

“As STEM Night mentor co-lead, I plan and run a safe and well-organized event for students. Together, we support student leads and volunteers, ensure registration material and flyers are prepared, and confirm that the activity is appropriate, safe, and clearly highlights STEM concepts. I also help with the activity by providing feedback and making sure all necessary supplies are ready. We make sure volunteers are informed and prepared. During the STEM Night, I assist with check-ins, name tags, wavier verifications, and ensuring the event is safe and enjoyable for all participants.”

Q2: What was your favorite activity from our STEM Nights?

"My favorite activity was the January 2025 STEM Night with a balloon propeller car. It was a neat activity because they had to make a car and propel it with a balloon, and then they had to race all the cars and give prizes to those who won. I felt like everyone enjoyed it and was engaged in the activity. The event highlights our guiding principles of FIRST, gracious professionalism, and coopetition, acting with integrity and respect to each other while competing, which we try to instill with all participants.”

Both mentors are essential in preparing for STEM Nights, and we all appreciate their work. Just as important as our mentors are our student leaders. 

Rhea Deshpande has been a member of the team for two years and is currently on the Electrical sub-team. She has been one of our STEM Night leaders for both years and is currently the lead STEM Night presenter.

Q1: What is your role in preparing for STEM Nights?

“I make sure that we have enough volunteers to help during our workshop and ensure we have the necessary supplies beforehand. I also make sure that we have enough support from our media team. For instance, our flyers are designed by Vivian Tran; I make sure the QR code works so parents can sign up their students without issue. Additionally, I make sure we have someone who takes pictures and videos of the event for social media.”

Q2: What is the hardest part about explaining the activity?

“The hardest part is that I need to make sure kids truly understand why they are doing the activity and how it works. I need the presentation to be understandable for elementary school students, so I choose information and examples at their level. To make sure they are grasping the concepts, I ask questions here and there to reinforce ideas. We really try to teach them so we don’t end up doing the activity for them and instead allow them to complete it independently.” 

Saathvik Sundaram has been on the team for two years on the Electrical sub-team and joined the STEM Night student leaders this year.

Q1: What is your role in preparing for STEM Nights?

“As a group, we all plan the activity and then work on the presentation. As for myself, I work on the material list for the STEM Night while the others do other components.”

Q2: What surprised you about working with elementary students? 

“I was surprised by how creative and good problem solvers they are. One specific example was our recent marble roller coaster this January, where they all had really good ideas. Unfortunately, we could not fully implement all their ideas, but they were able to incorporate some, such as reinforcing the walls with rolls. This shows me how creative their minds are.”

Vedha Tamilinian has been on the team since her freshman year, joining the robot code sub- team and becoming a STEM Night leader this year.

Q1: What is your role in preparing for STEM Nights? 

“We work together to first come up with a topic, and then we split up tasks. For example, I make part of the presentation while someone else makes the forms. The whole task is a big team thing with the three of us, so we are all working at the same time with different tasks.”

Q2: What are the steps you take in preparing for STEM Nights?

“First, we brainstorm a fun activity for the kids, but also something that connects to a STEM topic. We also try to connect it to whatever the month is, so like February we are doing a heart- themed activity for Valentine’s Day. And then we make our forms, flyers, and presentation for the month. Then we teach our volunteering members about the topic and how to do the activity before the STEM Night day. Finally, we host the STEM Night.”

As you can see, the student leaders are very dedicated to hosting fun and successful STEM Nights. Lastly, we interviewed a regular STEM Night volunteer, Michael Jin. As a volunteer for the last three years, we interviewed him regarding his experience.

Q1: What is your experience in volunteering for STEM Nights?

“I assist the kids in figuring out and staying focused on the workshop activity. I think the kids really enjoy the activities. Most kids first groan about it and don’t want to do the activity, but then they end up enjoying it. For me, I find most of the STEM Night topics pretty interesting. For example, the hand activity from last October, because I didn’t know you could create stuff like that with the strings across the joints and bending the hand like it was grabbing something.”

Q2: Why do you continue volunteering at STEM Nights, and would you recommend it to other members?

“I first started volunteering because I had never heard of STEM Nights and was curious. I wanted to see what it’s like and saw it was a way to contribute to our team and community. I enjoy volunteering at STEM Nights because it’s a way to teach kids about STEM, especially since it is something I would have loved when I was a kid. I would highly recommend it to other members because it’s not hard to do, fun because you are doing the activity too, and worthwhile to me.”

We are very grateful for Michael’s work as a volunteer. Through interviewing students and mentors involved in STEM Nights, we can spotlight the extensive process behind organizing each STEM Night and making it enjoyable for children, volunteers, and parents. We hope this blog post emphasizes our deep commitment to each event and the impact it has on our community.