Answers To Common Questions
The Winchester STARBASE program is fully funded by the Department of Defense. This means there is no cost to the school for the program. We only ask that the school provides transportation and makes sure the students have lunches.
No catch – the entire 5-day, 25-hour intensive STEAM program is completely free to the schools. As long as you can get the students here with their lunches, we’ll take care of the rest. Also, since we consider this to be an extension of the classroom rather than just a field trip, the teacher needs to come along and stay all day to provide support and any necessary discipline. We will take care of the teaching and encourage the classroom teacher to fully engage with the activities.
The Winchester STARBASE main program is designed for an entire class (up to 32 students) of 10 to 12 years old . Unfortunately, when school is in session we can not accept individual students. Individual students interested in coming to STARBASE should look into our summer camps – more info about the camps can be found here.
Yes. The program builds on itself and we are required to teach a minimum number of hours in each subject area listed in the Curriculum section (remember, this counts as a regular school day!). The program can be run either for 5 sequential days (Monday-Friday of a single week) or if there is a need outside of those days, contact us to work something out. Start and end times can also be discussed as it can be based on the school district, transportation, etc.
If a homeschool group can gather together at least 20 students, we might be able to work something out. The students should be between 10 to 12 years old. Please contact us to discuss your unique situation.
We offer a summer program for individual student sign-up. Visit our programs page for more details.
No. All participants, including teachers, chaperones, and students, must bring a non-perishable lunch and drink for each visit.
While we value the interest, we have not designed our program to accommodate tours.
No. Although some STEAM field careers do require further schooling whether it be a trade school, community college or a University, we only introduce the fields based on lessons that also coordinate with the standards of learning they are learning in school. Example; After a robotics lesson, we might say; if you enjoyed that lesson you may want to look into these fields such as a Robotics Field Technician, Electrician, Software Engineer, etc. We are just introducing many different fields for them to explore if they found the lesson interesting.
No. Although we are located on a military base, our primary goal is to inspire students to learn more science, technology, engineering and math so that they can explore STEAM field careers. To accomplish this, we introduce the students to a variety of professionals (civilian and military) as guests but the vast majority of the program is with our instructors. We focus on peaceful applications of STEAM such as designing robotic planetary explorers or vehicle crash safety systems, etc.
Contact us! We would be happy to explain everything to you. During that time you can request one (or more) of us come to your school to introduce the program to your teachers, students, administration and/or other interested parties or arrange for a visit to our location. We know we have a fantastic program here and we welcome any opportunity to talk about it.