Projects
AirBox Bootcamp
Project lead and Projects for Peace grantee · with Alacrity Education · 2026
I partnered with Alacrity Education to run a free Romanian STEAM bootcamp where students built and deployed air-quality monitors. A $10,000 Projects for Peace grant supported the program, and the students’ readings contributed to a public air-quality dataset.
- Projects for Peace grant
- $10,000
- Registrants
- 120+
- Online-phase completers
- 60
- In-person finalists
- 12
Why
The goal was to widen access to hands-on science and engineering and help young people collect and understand data about the air where they live. The grant project’s full title is “AirBox Bootcamp: Peace through Environmental Justice and Data Democracy.” The idea grew out of a youth-led climate advocacy training I took part in in April 2024, which got me thinking about pairing practical climate education with community data collection.
My role
I secured the grant through Projects for Peace, hosted by Middlebury College, with Wesleyan as the nominating institution. I worked with Alacrity Education on the budget, partnerships, outreach, participant selection, and running the program. Alacrity Education designed the original AirBox device.
The program
The online phase ran from June 22 to July 12 and covered programming, electronics, physics, chemistry, and science communication. The twelve finalists then spent July 24–31 in Bucharest soldering, 3D printing, assembling, testing, and deploying their monitors. Participation was free, and a recorded welcome message from Nobel laureate Kip Thorne opened the program.
Result
The students deployed their monitors, and their readings now feed a public air-quality database.