Let's build!
Build League is a 2-hour workshop for 4th–7th graders where open-ended engineering challenges become a playground for teamwork, grit, and productive struggle. Whether builders go on to be scientists, storytellers or something we haven’t imagined yet, learning to fail, figure things out and try again, will be part of the job.
Each session starts with a build challenge and an orientation to the materials we have to work with. Then we introduce a prototype that doesn’t quite work, and invite builders to figure out why. Teams form, ideas fly, things break, and new solutions emerge.
Then comes the showdown: teams put their creations to the test in a friendly competition.
We wrap up by stepping back from the builds to ask: What did we learn about building? About working together? About sticking with something when it gets hard? And about ourselves?
About
Joel Segre founded The Build League in 2025, starting with his two boys, their friends, and neighborhood kids. After 20 sessions in his garage, Build League is opening up to a broader community.
Much of Joel's inspiration comes from Lance Akiyama at STEM Inventions, whose free, project-based STEM curricula have helped make hands-on engineering accessible to educators everywhere.
Community Resources for Science has provided crucial inputs to Season 2, including an incredible pipeline of projects and talent.
East Bay Makers Club hosts Build League 9:30–11:30am on some weekend mornings. We are still working out a consistent schedule.