RAFT Blog, News, and Events

🏆 RAFT Wins Double Gold in Bay Area Parent’s 2025 Best of the Best Awards!

July 29, 2025

RAFT is proud to announce that our STEAM Dream Summer Camp has been awarded Gold in two categories in Bay Area Parent Magazine’s 2025 Best of the Best Awards: 🥇 Best Day Camp – Silicon Valley 🥇 Best Science & Technology Camp – Silicon Valley This exciting recognition reflects the strength and impact of RAFT’s…

Bringing Hands-On STEAM Learning to San Diego Educators

May 18, 2025

RAFT recently had the pleasure of participating in the San Diego STEAM Educators Conference at the University of San Diego from May 16-17. The event brought together hundreds of teachers from across the state committed to advancing STEAM education across Southern California. Nancy McIntyre, RAFT’s new Community Engagement Manager, represented our team at the conference,…

From Honoree to Advocate: A STEAM Award’s Ripple Effect

May 14, 2025

At RAFT, we believe in celebrating educators who bring STEAM to life through hands-on learning. Our STEAM Teachers and Administrators of the Year Awards honor those who go above and beyond-and sometimes, that recognition inspires something even bigger. Just ask Bryan Williams, a past STEAM Teacher of the Year award recipient who later nominated another…

DreamBox Impact Series: Milpitas Unified School District

April 1, 2025

Engaging EL and SPED Learners Through Hands-On STEAM For the past two summers, RAFT has partnered with Milpitas Unified School District to bring hands-on STEAM learning to the district’s Extended School Year (ESY) summer program. This past summer, 230 fourth- through sixth-grade Special Education (SPED) and English Learner (EL) students became environmental engineers-designing water filtration…

2021 Fall Event & Sale

Sep 15, 2021 | Comments Off

Join us at RAFT on Saturday, October 2, 9-4 pm for our outdoor, parking lot Fall Event & Sale that includes a full day of free and fun, hands-on STEAM learning activities for all K-12 children. We’ll be featuring our best-sellers like our hands-on…

Teacher Training at Luther Burbank School District

Aug 23, 2021 | Comments Off

On Monday, August 16, 2021, RAFT helped the Luther Burbank School District kick off the 2021-22 school year with a professional development session focusing on materials and makerspace teaching. This session is the first of many more engagements planned between the school and RAFT.…

Paying Tribute to Nigel Ball

Aug 6, 2021 | Comments Off

The RAFT family is sad to share the passing of our current board member and longtime friend and supporter, Nigel Ball. “During the many years that I had the joy of knowing Nigel, I found him to be a kindred spirit. He shared my…

Ramp It Up Event with RAFT’s Maker Mobile

Jul 29, 2021 | Comments Off

The RAFT Maker Mobile, sponsored by The Sharks Foundation and Western Digital, rolled onto the Milpitas School District campus on a cool July morning. About 50 summer school students joined RAFT’s Education facilitators, Qi Diaz, Mikey Ramot, and Mike Pollock for the Ramp It…

Have You Used Our Laser Engraver?

Jul 26, 2021 | Comments Off

Our laser engraver is available for use by approved RAFT members from Wednesdays through Fridays. Approved members are those that have taken the RAFT introductory laser workshop. We understand that it may have been a while since you last used a laser engraver, so if you…

RAFT Delivers 3 New STEAM Kits to Walden West

Jun 21, 2021 | Comments Off

Two weeks ago, the Walden West Team was able to play with three new STEAM Project Kits: The Electric-wind Generator, Bread Bag Parachute, The Articulated Leg. Each person was able to design, prototype and test their designs in preparation for their summer camps. Over 300…