The Foundation for a Meaningful Life
Kindergarten - Grade 9 in Southborough, MA

Innovation Saturdays at Fay School

Join us for an Innovation Saturday on May 13!

Our hands-on workshops, designed for children ages 8-12, are a great way to learn more about engineering, creativity, and design. All workshops are taught by Fay faculty on the Fay School campus in Southborough. These courses are free, but advance registration is required and space is limited.

Curious about Fay's Creativity and Design Program? Learn more>>

Saturday, May 13, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm

List of 4 items.

  • Balloon Flying Saucers

    The year is 2069. Your mission: to create a vehicle that runs on nothing but air. Your challenge is to figure out the best way to design and implement this ambitious idea in the real world! Join us as we design and create hovercrafts and then refine them to maximize distance and speed. Students will learn about design and scientific processes, explore the mathematics behind calculating speed, and race to see who can make the fastest vehicle!  

    Instructor: Andrew Shirley, Creativity and Design Teacher
    Date: Saturday, May 13 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
    For ages 8-12
    Limited to 10 students (Workshop Full)

  • Moose on the Move: Build Your Own Boat!

    Your mission: to propel a moose (don’t worry, a small toy moose, not a live one!) across a body of water without touching the moose itself! Join Fay teachers Emily McCauley and Katie Buteau for an action-packed design-and-build activity where you’ll learn about flotation, propulsion, and how to iterate and improve your invention!

    Instructors: Katie Buteau, third grade teacher, and Emily McCauley, Upper School teacher
    Date: Saturday, May 13 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
    For ages 8-12
    Limited to 10 students (Workshop Full)

  • Spacesuit Design Challenge

    Get ready, NASA….Fay’s designers are on the job! Your mission is to design a spacesuit that can help maintain the body temperature of an astronaut in the extreme heat and cold of outer space. You’ll be using water-filled “Space Worms” as test subjects that mimic the water composition of the adult human body. Build a budget, design and test your spacesuit, and get ready for a hands-on experience that’s out of this world!

    Instructor: Adel Collins, Upper School science teacher
    Date: Saturday, May 13 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
    For ages 8-12
    Limited to 8 students (Workshop Full)

  • Introduction to Coding – Create Animations and Games

    Learn the fundamentals of coding and how to create your own animations and games in this introduction to Processing, a free and flexible software sketchbook and coding language. We’ll also be working with LEGO SPIKE Prime sets to help students understand how to create a structured sequence of programming activities in a real-world context.
     
    Instructor: Xiaohu Zhao, Physical Science teacher
    Date: Saturday, May 13, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
    For ages 9-12
    Limited to 10 students (Workshop Full)

Parking and Details

All parents should park in Harlow Circle, which can be accessed via Fay School's East Entrance. Click here for directions to the East Entrance, located at 23 Middle Road in Southborough, MA. If you use Apple Maps, please note that this address will take you to an incorrect location that is on the other side of the Sudbury Reservoir. If using GPS navigation, we suggest that you use Google Maps. 

Check-in will take place at Fay's Center for Creativity and Design. Signs will be placed in Harlow Circle to direct you to the check-in area. Please arrive 15 minutes before the workshop's scheduled start time.

After check-in, the workshop instructors will take children and their parents to the classroom where the workshop will take place. Parents will then be dismissed, but will return to the classroom at the conclusion of the workshop to pick their child up.
Meet Our Faculty
Katie Buteau joined the Fay community as a third grade teacher in August of 2016. She earned her master’s degree in Elementary Education at Lesley University while simultaneously student teaching at the Buckingham Browne & Nichols School. In addition to teaching, Katie enjoys running, baking, and spending time with her daughters, Nell and Evie, and her husband, Joe, who teaches in Fay's Upper School!
Adel Collins is an Upper School Science teacher and joined Fay in 2003. While her love of new experiences has taken her to over forty different countries, she felt very much at home when she joined the Fay community with its students and faculty from around the world. At Fay, Adel has taught Earth Science, Life Science, Biology, and Diagnosing the Modern World. She enjoys bringing her global perspective and her background in environmental law into the classroom. In addition to her teaching duties, she serves at the School’s yearbook advisor and has served as a live-in dorm parent on Top Floor Girls and in Webster House. She lives on campus with her husband, Greg; sons, Jesse and Finnigan; and their cat, Micah.
Emily McCauley has been teaching at Fay since 2007. She has been a member of the History Department throughout her Fay career, teaching a variety of courses in that time. She also serves as a Grade-Level Dean, a live-in dorm parent, advisor, and coach for the girls varsity soccer and squash teams. When she is not engaged in pursuits related to her career at Fay, Emily is most likely to be found traveling, reading, or pursuing outdoor adventures with her family. She and her husband currently live in the Village Girls' Dormitory with their sons Cormac and Fergus, and their dog, Max.
Andrew Shirley is a technology and design teacher at Fay. Prior to Fay, he taught sixth and seventh grade science, served as a teaching assistant at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and coached basketball and soccer. Andrew has a B.A. in studio art from Allegheny College and an M.F.A. from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University.
Xiaohu Zhao holds bachelor's and master's degrees in science from the University of Michigan. He teaches eighth grade Physical Science at Fay, and he has also worked in Fay's English Immersion program. His favorite aspect of teaching at Fay is the opportunity to help students learn and love science and math. He believes learning science and math is more than memorizing formulas on the whiteboard - instead, he enjoys helping students explore and understand how physical science and math work through creative problem-solving. During his free time, Xiaohu loves to travel with his wife, who is also a teacher at Fay.
 
 

Registration Information

Once you complete the registration below, we will contact you with more information and to let you know if your registration was accepted. There is limited space in each workshop, and spots are being filled on a first come, first serve basis. If you would like to register multiple children, please fill this form out separately for each individual.

Registration is Closed

48 MAIN STREET
SOUTHBOROUGH, MA 01772
main number 508-490-8250
admission 508-490-8201