In order to motivate the pursuit of and interest in a STEM curriculum for 12-17 year olds, an interactive space exploration robotics camp was developed by the Robotics and Spatial Systems Laboratory at the Florida Institute of Technology. The camp incorporated hands-on activities to explain robots and their practical uses. Problem solving with the versatile robot became the underlying theme of the camp under the guise of a space mission to Jupiter’s moon, Europa. Team building exercises were designed and executed during the camp to teach about engineering and problem solving. Through teamwork, discussions, patience, and dexterity the two teams of the camp successfully completed the simulated mission to save the fictitious base on Europa. The summer camp curriculum was original work developed by RASSL to provide young people with an introduction to robotics. This paper discusses the robot kit development, the activities created for the week, the group competitions, the insight learned by RASSL, and the participant feedback about the camp. This work may be used as a template for creating a small scale robotics camp hosted by a university or high school robotics lab or club. ∗Address all correspondence to this author. INTRODUCTION The Robotics and Spatial Systems Laboratory (RASSL) at the Florida Institute of Technology hosted a 2015 summer camp for junior high and high school students. The purpose of the camp was to motivate interest in STEM among young people by hosting a hands-on experience with a 6 degree of freedom robot arm in an interactive and stimulating environment, i.e. a space adventure on Europa, Jupiter. The group mission allowed the students to collaborate for a cause: to complete the mission objective. This collaboration effort was shown to be an alternative and important form of learning in camps by Ayar, et al. [1]. An interactive camp environment was shown to increase learning in technology and engineering subjects compared to a classroom environment according to Nugent, et al. [2]. The students took home from the camp both robot skills and the robot itself to continue experimenting with after the camp was over. The purpose of this paper was to explain the events of the RASSL camp, what we learned, and how a lab in the future might host a robotics camp to promote STEM interest successfully. The camp was held June 15th-19th, 2015 on the campus of Florida Tech. The theme of the camp was Europa: A Space Adventure. The camp theme was built around a robotics mission to save colonists on Jupiter’s moon, Europa. The adventure theme tied a purpose to programming the robots; the rescue mission required specific goals and learned skills in order for the mission and group effort to be successful. Proceedings of the ASME 2016 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference IDETC/CIE 2016 August 21-24, 2016, Charlotte, North Carolina