About SAME Camps

Are you on an engineering track? Do you want to work as part of a real engineering or construction project team this summer? This three day overnight STEM camp will provide students (8th - 12th grade) an opportunity to broaden their engineering knowledge and apply problem solving techniques while competing among their teams.  This camp is designed to focus on hands-on activities, supervised and executed by engineers. Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) has been conducting these world-class camps for over 16 years and has an excellent record “building our nation’s future engineers.”

The SAME Engineering & Construction Camp at Marine Corps Base (MCB) Camp Lejeune near Jacksonville, NC is entering its fourth year. This camp provides a hands-on program with very real engineering activities and challenges.

The camp theme is “Design Bid Build” delivery. Activities are conducted with this concept in mind. Some examples: one of the camp’s most popular hands-on construction activities involves designing, constructing and breaking a concrete beam. Working as a team, the campers design and construct their forms to accept 0.1 cubic yards of concrete mixed from their stocks of cement, course and fine aggregate, and water. On the last day of activities, the beams are tested for deflection and deformation using military vehicles. Another example is the Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAV) also known as the Cardboard Canoe. The campers design their water-borne vehicle using Archimedes’ principle of buoyancy. Once constructed, the campers race their team’s AAV against other team’s AAV in the indoor tank (swimming pool) working as a Team. Prior to each design activity the campers receive instruction from a Professional Engineer or Marine Corps Combat Engineer Instructor on the event, objectives, and engineering principles involved. Each activity is timed and scored on factors used to award points that serve as a basis to award battle streamers.

These tasks challenge students to apply their academic knowledge, as well as their problem solving and teamwork skills. The campers gain leadership and followship experiences which will serve them well as they move forward with their college engineering education and later enter the engineering work community.

Throughout the week, students also build stormwater basins (also known as best management practices or BMPs), trebuchets, cell phone chargers powered by solar energy, and participate in team-building and problem-solving activities. Campers receive a mission brief of the Marine Corps installation, tour some of the recent and current construction projects aboard MCB Camp Lejeune, and receive a briefing from a US Naval Academy Blue and Gold Officer about the service academy’s admission process.  

The US Marine Corps camp is geared toward students interested in pursuing engineering in college or a service academy and is built on a the steps Professional Engineers encounter when working with a client to deliver sound engineering products.

Campers live, eat and complete activities as a squad of 10, under the guidance of a uniformed service member and two professional working engineers. Berthing is provided in US Marine Corps barracks, meals are taken at galleys or in the field, and instruction is conducted at various sites aboard MCB Camp Lejeune.

The SAME STEM Engineering & Construction Camp at the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA) in Colorado Springs, CO has been operating for decades. This is a hands-on program with very real engineering activities and challenges. The camp is geared toward students on a STEM track. Campers are high school students selected from around the world.  

This is a week long, live in camp, with full emersion to engineering and STEM activities. The AFA provides world class facilities for this program.  Campers work as a team of 12 to complete engineering tasks in a competitive environment. Campers are supervised, mentored, coached, lead and guided by young STEM professionals and college students in a STEM major.

The camp theme is “Build then Design”, meaning that more time is spent planning and completing a project with time spent after completion explaining the theory and concepts behind an event. Engineering challenges may include: concrete beam construction, water purification, engineering reaction exercise, STEM USAFA and Laboratory tours, wood frame vertical construction, visit engineering & architectural firms, construct and race a boat, discussions with working STEM grads and other professionals and much more.

These tasks challenge students to use their imagination and problem solving skills and work as a team.

Campers live, eat and complete activities as a Flight team of 12, under the guidance of a college engineering student and two professional working engineers. The camp is in a field environment, living a t 7,000 ft at the foot of Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs.

SAME Posts around the globe offer a variety of STEM and engineering camps. They vary from one-day to week long programs and feature hands on activites.