Upper School Intersession 2025

Thanks to significant advances in machine learning and data science, decision makers are embracing and employing advanced algorithms and statistical models to help with or fully automate difficult tasks across our society. With examples ranging from advertising and finance to healthcare and criminal justice, machine learning tools have become ubiquitous. While often providing significant improvements in speed and performance, these tools come with increased complexity that can make the decision making process opaque and difficult to evaluate. How did your model make that prediction? Why? Are the decisions that it makes fair? How can we quantify fairness? In this activity, we will discuss real-world examples of automated algorithmic decision making along with the practical and ethical problems they can face. We will explore the ideas of bias, fairness, safety, and interpretability.

Jeremiah and Jacquie Robison will lead students through their experiences as 9th grader, Sofia Robison's parents. Sofia received a diagnosis of cerebral palsy when she was just over one year old.

Jacquie saw the inequity/gaps that exist with disability inclusion, and launched the multi-national nonprofit, WAWOS (We're All Working On Something). Their mission is to disrupt the narrative around physical disability in kids + teens, promote access to adventure for all abilities, and advocate inclusion. Her engagement will empower students to consider the social change they want to see, and lead them through steps to either partner with existing orgs or build mission statements, draft bylaws, apply for nonprofit status etc to build community for strong impact

Jeremiah, as a serial entrepreneur and technologist, was frustrated by the lack of tools to address mobility impairments (why have we not moved beyond walkers and wheelchairs?), and launched VC-backed CIONIC, to build bionic clothing. They have built an FDA-cleared Neural Sleeve (lower limb) that combines motor learning with functional electrical stimulation to activate the necessary muscles precisely coordinated in the gait cycle. Jeremiah will guide students through approaches to apply technology/innovation to solve a problem.

Join us for a look at the art, science, and technology behind pinball. In this session we’ll look at the evolution of pinball, from the early mechanical games to today’s technological marvels. Learn how artists, designers, and engineers collaborate to create a game, and what pinball can tell us about history and culture.

We’ll spend half of this session examining a pinball machine and its components, discussing why pinball was illegal in many states, and how changes in technology and culture can be observed in the design of a pinball machine. In the other half of the session, we’ll be playing pinball machines from different eras to see how the game has changed over time. We’ll also cover some basic pinball strategies you can use to improve your skills!

Biomimicry is the conscious emulation of Life’s genius. It is a design and innovation discipline that brings together science, engineering, design and business. Organizations and change agents around the world learn from nature at multiple scales: products, packaging and materials, processes, and systems like cities. Join this session to learn about biomimicry and "Life’s Principles" — nature’s overarching strategies for good design — and start using them. The session will include a presentation and a team exercise. Teams will apply Life’s Principles to address specific challenges.

Insect evolution offers a wealth of inspiration for human innovations. Learn how the remarkable adaptations of insects and other arthropods are influencing people in fields like medicine, engineering, and architecture. Led by Beetlelady, Dr. Stephanie Dole, this class will be an engaging tour of the amazing solutions nature has come up with and how humans can learn from them. This class will also include hands-on time with live bugs.

In this 2.5 hour activity, you'll learn the basics of small-scale metalworking using a variety of tools! You'll get an introduction to the world of soldering, shaping, and polishing metal to create little pieces of wearable art!

No experience whatsoever is necessary, but come with some idea of what you want to make, closed-toed shoes, and no flowy sleeves! Or, if you DO have experience from a past Jewelry Intersession or a WoW Workshop, you'll have the freedom to explore techniques you already know, get instruction on anything more advanced, or ask for advice on anything you're working on!

Interested in a longer, more in-depth course where we'll get more practice and get to cover things more thoroughly? Check out the 5 hour In-depth version of this class!

TIG (Tungsten Inert Gas): So you've melted some metal. Now learn the process that took us to outer space! TIG is welding on exotic metals and specialized applications: bicycles, rockets, and racecars — oh my! Get your intro to TIG, with hands-on practice and applied knowledge to begin your own journey into the science of metal. Safety equipment and course materials will be provided.

Let's go on a journey into the motivations and methods employed by individuals and organizations who exploit online systems. Through real-world examples and group discussion, you will gain insights into how hackers think and operate. Using these insights, we then will explore the current tools and technologies that engineers build to protect online systems. Where we end up on this journey is up to you. We can either go deep into a particular type of attack and design the systems to combat it or do a broader survey of the current state of the art.

Having a knowledge of how http requests work and experience with scripting language is a plus but not necessary for this session.

Join us for a look at the art, science, and technology behind pinball. In this session we’ll look at the evolution of pinball, from the early mechanical games to today’s technological marvels. Learn how artists, designers, and engineers collaborate to create a game, and what pinball can tell us about history and culture.

We’ll spend half of this session examining a pinball machine and its components, discussing why pinball was illegal in many states, and how changes in technology and culture can be observed in the design of a pinball machine. In the other half of the session, we’ll be playing pinball machines from different eras to see how the game has changed over time. We’ll also cover some basic pinball strategies you can use to improve your skills!

Join us for a look at the art, science, and technology behind pinball. In this session we’ll look at the evolution of pinball, from the early mechanical games to today’s technological marvels. Learn how artists, designers, and engineers collaborate to create a game, and what pinball can tell us about history and culture.

We’ll spend half of this session examining a pinball machine and its components, discussing why pinball was illegal in many states, and how changes in technology and culture can be observed in the design of a pinball machine. In the other half of the session, we’ll be playing pinball machines from different eras to see how the game has changed over time. We’ll also cover some basic pinball strategies you can use to improve your skills!

Do you like to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty? Do you have a bicycle? Would you like to know how to maintain your bike? This Intersession class will teach you how to change a flat tire, repair a flat tire, clean/change/oil/wax your bicycle chain,re-tape your bar, and change your brake pads. No prequisitie skills required.

Participants are encouraged to bring their own bikes! If they don't own a bike but want to learn these skills in preparation for future bike ownership, we will provide a few teacher-owned bikes to fix up.

In this 2.5 hour activity, you'll learn the basics of small-scale metalworking using a variety of tools! You'll get an introduction to the world of soldering, shaping, and polishing metal to create little pieces of wearable art!

No experience whatsoever is necessary, but come with some idea of what you want to make, closed-toed shoes, and no flowy sleeves! Or, if you DO have experience from a past Jewelry Intersession or a WoW Workshop, you'll have the freedom to explore techniques you already know, get instruction on anything more advanced, or ask for advice on anything you're working on!

Interested in a longer, more in-depth course where we'll get more practice and get to cover things more thoroughly? Check out the 5 hour In-depth version of this class!

This session is an introduction to low latency trading. It covers varies of technologies we can leverage to trade financial products at single digit microsecond level.

No prerequisite financial market knowledge required.

Join us for a look at the art, science, and technology behind pinball. In this session we’ll look at the evolution of pinball, from the early mechanical games to today’s technological marvels. Learn how artists, designers, and engineers collaborate to create a game, and what pinball can tell us about history and culture.

We’ll spend half of this session examining a pinball machine and its components, discussing why pinball was illegal in many states, and how changes in technology and culture can be observed in the design of a pinball machine. In the other half of the session, we’ll be playing pinball machines from different eras to see how the game has changed over time. We’ll also cover some basic pinball strategies you can use to improve your skills!