Week 1 of Session 2 was filled with exciting Quest and Genre challenges, along with the annual AABC Halloween party! Quest: Electricity and Light Our Quest for Session 2 is not only exciting but also a team Quest! This session, we’ll be exploring electricity and light, with the goal of creating a city illuminated by real lights. To make the Quest more collaborative, we were divided into small teams of two or three learners. We started with the basics of electricity and learne

Welcome to Launchpad’s seventh week! This marks the final week of our first session, and what a way to wrap things up! Genre: Am I Hired? Mock Interviews This week brought the event we had been preparing for throughout the session: our mock job interviews! In the weeks leading up to the interviews, we emailed prospective “employers,” received their responses, and scheduled our interviews. When the big day arrived, we answered questions about why we wanted the positions, what

Welcome to Launchpad’s sixth week! This week, learners focused on career planning, practiced job interviews with AI, explored ancient Greek societies, and enjoyed an outdoor adventure at Alpine Scout Camp. Here’s a look at what we accomplished! Quest: NGA Boards and AI-Powered Interviews This week in Quest, we focused on two main projects: our NGA boards and practice job interviews using AI. We designed and created content for our NGA boards, including our personal “Why” stat

Welcome to Launchpad’s fifth week! This week was filled with meaningful discussions, creative projects, historical exploration, and our first field trip of the year to New York City. Genre: Once Upon a Time… This week in Genre, we focused on drafting our origin stories—stories that tell our audience who we are, where we are headed, and what our mission and values are. These stories help us connect with others and build trust, an essential element in business, relationships, a

Welcome to Launchpad’s fourth week! Genre: Are Other People’s Opinions Always Bad? This week in Genre, we broadened the scope of our interviews. While last week focused on learning how we view ourselves, this week was all about understanding how other people view us. We rated each other on the traits included in the Big Five Personality Test, and later reflected on how accurate we thought our scores were. This gave us an opportunity to compare our own perceptions with the per

Welcome to Launchpad’s Third Week! This has been an extremely busy week! With our Lip Dub video and Studio Contracts complete, Session One has officially begun. This Session, our Genre is focused on interviews. While we will eventually work our way up to interviewing for our dream jobs, we are starting at the most basic level: with ourselves. To prepare for this challenge, we were introduced to the concept of the mask. A mask can be a form of protection—a way we hide parts of

This week began with the reintroduction of three very important activities in the Launchpad Studio: Core Skills, House Cup, and NGA time. On Wednesday, we officially launched this year’s House Cup, giving us an opportunity to connect more deeply with our Houses while strengthening our leadership and teamwork skills. We were also introduced to our NGA squads, where 100+ Launchpad learners from across the globe gathered on a Zoom call to meet and collaborate with others who sha

Welcome to LaunchPad’s First Week! This week was the perfect start to the year—one that began as if we had never left. While much of our work focused on planning for the year ahead, the energy in the studio was beautiful. Although the LaunchPad community looks a little different this year, our connections to one another feel just as strong as they always have. To begin the year, we started with our traditional Acton Lip Dub. We spent much of this week sharing ideas and planni