DAVID MAMARIL HOROWITZ

david.horowitz@bgdailynews.com

In the hallway of Western Kentucky University’s Innovation Campus, a group of children create Caesarean ciphers to decode hidden messages. Nearby, some use artificial intelligence to interpret their drawings. Down the hall, others use 3-D printing software to build their own structures. And outside, kids are making bottle rockets from baking soda, vinegar and a Pepsi bottle.

Eight Massachusetts Institute of Technology students guide the four groups, totaling about 75 students mostly in grades 5-9, through the lessons and the hands-on exercises as part of MIT’s Spokes STEM Learning Festival. The university students are bicycling from Washington, DC,. to San Francisco over 77 days — during which they’ll host about 11 of these learning opportunities.

Jayce Gibbs, 12, said it stood out how interactive and helpful the instruction was.

“The interaction is more than just sitting still and learning,” Gibbs said. “And this is, I think, the fun part of school — and this is what I like to see in it.”

Ruth Shiferaw, who helped lead the 3-D printing sessions, recalled being 8 in Boston — surrounded by universities and programs that taught kids STEM.

“It made me fall in love with STEM and engineering,” she said. “At 8 years old, I knew I wanted to be a mechanical engineer — and it’s because people who are in positions like I am right now took time out of their days to mentor young kids and get them interested in STEM.”

“So, I personally just want to pass that down and do my job fostering a love of STEM in the next generation of kids.”

Greta Lawler, who studies material science and engineering, expressed the hope that the kids will want to ask more questions.

“I don’t want them to leave and think we have this all figured out,” she said. “I think my goal is that at the end of the workshop, they still have more questions, and they’re going out and realizing, ‘I could be the person to answer this question that I have.’

The event was organized by AccelerateKY, hosted by WKU Innovation Campus and sponsored by Stupp Fiber, with Airbnb sponsoring the team’s stay downtown.