The Collaboratory is a social platform built from scratch, consisting entirely of user-generated ideas and co-created content. We launched with three unclassified projects—Search and Rescue 2.0, Mind of a Quadrotor and The Launch of GPS IIF. Students submitted ideas—text, sketches, videos, prototypes—and worked with Air Force experts to strengthen ideas and even test them in the field. The most active collaborators were rewarded with badges and special responsibilities. This wasn’t a crowdsourcing effort—we built the classroom of the future, marrying the digital with the physical to solve real-life problems.

As a result of social activity, students and classrooms submitted 3,000 ideas, including a 3-D printed microbot called The Arachnipede that will be deployed after natural disasters to find survivors. They programmed a quadcopter—a flying robot—to think and navigate a room with minimal human interaction. And finally, they launched a $150 million GPS satellite into a precise point in space—not a simulation, a real GPS satellite.

- Students spent an average time of 47 minutes per visit.

- Nearly 3K ideas were submitted.

- Video content generated over 3MM views.

- 500K students participated.

PROBLEM

The United States ranks 31st in STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). A lack of engineers and scientists poses a serious problem for Silicon Valley, our government and economy.

OUR OBJECTIVE

As one of the most technologically innovative organizations on the planet, we had to inspire high school students to consider STEM careers.

SOCIAL CHALLENGE

We had to build this community from nothing and encourage students to submit ideas to challenging problems.

STRATEGY/INSIGHT

To engage high school students to consider STEM, let them work on the most inspiring STEM projects out there.

IDEA

We convinced the U.S. Air Force to unclassify three real-life STEM projects and built The Air Force Collaboratory, a collaborative platform where students generated ideas together with Air Force experts to solve daunting science and technology problems.