The day after CHAMPS, we dropped Benji off at UVA for a three-day STEM camp. BLAST (Building Leaders to Advance Science and Technology) is a program run by the Virginia Space Grant Consortium and puts on three free camps every summer (one at UVA, one at Virginia Tech and one at Old Dominion). The program is for rising 9th and 10th grade students and has a competitive application process (a counselor told Benji there were 1200 applicants for the 80 spots available). Benji was thrilled to be chosen and had an amazing time:
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| Dropping him off at his dorm |
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| Camp started with an address from astronaut Kathy Thornton. Benji us holding a picture of her from her Hubble mission and texted us this after he got to meet her |
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| VSGC posted pictures on Facebook so we could get a look at what he was doing. This is his Mars Rover group with their robot |
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| Benji in the background. I think they were working with spectrographs here |
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| Tour of UVA. Benji conveniently wore an orange UVA shirt so we could pick him out in pictures. |
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| At the observatory where they got to observe a nebula through the big telescope and attended a program on black holes |
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| Stopping by the stadium. Since Benji was the only kid from Charlottesville, this was apparently a big thrill for the rest of them |
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| Group picture |
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