RAFT Blog, News, and Events

Featured Articles and News

STEAM Dream Summer Camp 2025: A Season of Innovation, Discovery, and Fun

August 19, 2025

This August marks the exciting wrap-up of RAFT’s 2025 STEAM Dream Summer Camp and DreamBox season-our biggest yet! Over the course of eight action-packed weeks, we delivered more than 180 hours of hands-on STEAM programming, engaging TK-8 students from across the Bay Area in engineering challenges, storytelling adventures, and STEAM experimentation. With programs running across…

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🏆 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…

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STEAM in Action: RAFT Joins Synaptics for Bring Your Kids to Work Day

July 25, 2025

RAFT kicked off July with a hands-on, minds-on celebration of innovation by partnering with Synaptics for their Bring Your Kids to Work Day at the company’s San Jose campus. Synaptics employees brought their children to learn more about what their parents do and how STEM and STEAM skills power the technology all around us. RAFT…

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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,…

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RAFT Delivers 3 New STEAM Kits to Walden West

Jun 21, 2021 | Comments Off on RAFT Delivers 3 New STEAM Kits to Walden West

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…

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TK-2 STEAM Kits for Hands-On Early Childhood Education

Jun 21, 2021 | Comments Off on TK-2 STEAM Kits for Hands-On Early Childhood Education

RAFT has been fortunate to work with the very talented Jennifer Hunau, STEM Coordinator for the San Ramon Valley Unified School District, in developing a series of 9 STEAM kits for over 6,000 TK-2 students. Pictured below are materials for 12,870 kits that were…

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San Antonio Makerspace Build

Jun 15, 2021 | Comments Off on San Antonio Makerspace Build

June 7th – 8th were busy days for the students at San Antonio Elementary School in San Jose. Nearly 50 students in grades K-5 built furniture for their school makerspace with RAFT! The makerspace build is a project from RAFT’s Education department where we…

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50 Teachers from the Salinas City Elementary School District Build Car On A Roll Kits

Jun 15, 2021 | Comments Off on 50 Teachers from the Salinas City Elementary School District Build Car On A Roll Kits

It was a fun-packed, fast-paced day at Boronda Meadows Elementary School in Salinas on Wednesday, June 9th! Nearly 50 teachers from the Salinas City Elementary School District participated in a professional learning opportunity (PLO) arranged by Julie Stephens-Carrillo from Hartnell College. This PLO serves…

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Teacher Appreciation Week

May 7, 2021 | Comments Off on Teacher Appreciation Week

Saturday, May 8:  Do teachers ever fully retire? If you were to ask these teachers they would say no! RAFT relies heavily on volunteers to help make our resources accessible to the education community at low cost. On average around 6,000 volunteers support RAFT…

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Thanking RAFT Volunteers: Jean and Wayne

Apr 27, 2021 | Comments Off on Thanking RAFT Volunteers: Jean and Wayne

For 27 years, volunteers have played an important role at RAFT. Because of our volunteers, RAFT is able to make our resources available to the education community for affordable prices.  An example of volunteers playing an important role at RAFT is Jean and Wayne…

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