Our Story

Our Beginning... SMILE Camp was originally created to address the needs of academically/intellectually gifted students to explore real science while doing so among peers. SMILE began as a partnership between the Academic and Intellectually Gifted Department of Wake County Public Schools (WCPSS) and the North Carolina State University Department Materials Science & Engineering. The camp began in the labs and classrooms of Engineering Building I on the NCSU Centennial Campus. Each camp’s experiments are different and over 250 different experiments have been completed in SMILE Camp’s eight year history.  

Our Mission Our mission is to foster student interest in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) for elementary, middle school, high school, and beyond. We introduce students to real hands-on science, surround them with intellectual peers, and challenge them to work to their potential. We would like to inspire a life-long passion for STEAM fields.