On July 11 at the SRC arena at Onondaga Community College, students from multiple area schools gathered to take part in Chip Camp.

According to OCC, more than 100 rising seventh, eighth, and ninth grade students took part in Micron-sponsored Chip Camp.

The students are from the Syracuse City School District, LaFayette Central School District including the Onondaga Nation School, East Syracuse Minoa School District, and several Oswego County school districts whose students are part of the P-TECH program through CiTi BOCES.

The students took part in several STEM-related activities which included rockets, circuits, inventions, chromatography, and the Straw Tower Challenge.

The camp continued the following days with a July 12 visit to a clean room at Cornell University and further activities July 13 at The MOST in downtown Syracuse.

According to micron.com, Chip Camp is a day camp filled with hands-on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) activities related to semiconductor manufacturing and engineering. Chip Camp invites students to see and experience what engineers and scientists do every day in a semiconductor company.

The website goes on to say that the camp is designed to pique students’ curiosity and challenges their minds through hands-on STEM and semiconductor activities.

Interested students who sign up for Chip Camp get to learn how memory chips are made, discover the science involved in building circuits, launching rockets and programming robots, explore engineering, physics, chemistry and computer science topics and be mentored by Micron team members and engineering students from local universities.

Since the announcement that Micron plans to build a facility in Clay, OCC has been working to create educational opportunities that will align with the needs of a facility like Micron.

This includes an electromechanical technology associate in applied science degree program. This is a two-year degree program focused on the troubleshooting of electrical and mechanical systems.

The electromechanical technology certificate program is a one-year certificate program which touches on the foundational skills and knowledge in the two-year degree program and prepares students for entry-level work. Credits earned can be put toward the two-year degree.

OCC is also in the process of designing a new clean room simulation lab which will be built on the OCC campus in the Whitney Applied Technology Center.

Micron announced Oct. 4 that it plans to build four semiconductor chip fabs over the course of 20 years at the White Pine Commerce Park in Clay.

President Joe Biden visited the area to help make this announcement and spoke at OCC about what this means for Central New York.

In his law school days at Syracuse University, Biden recalled, Central New York was the “heartland of manufacturing” with thriving companies such as Kodak, Corning and General Electric. Biden commended New York State Gov. Kathy Hochul and Sen. Chuck Schumer for their vision of restoring New York to its former industrial glory.

“The governor has always believed it could be that way again. She thought that would be the case, and the region is poised to lead the world in advanced manufacturing,” Biden said, emphasizing, “Not a joke — poised to lead the world.”

Schumer authored the CHIPS and Science Act, which provides $52.7 billion for semiconductor research, workforce development and incentives for manufacturers. Biden signed it into law.

NYS expanded tax credits for semiconductor manufacturers with the Green CHIPS law, authored by Assemblymember Al Stirpe (D-North Syracuse, 127th District).

“What I hear when I go door to door is that we need good-paying local jobs here in Central New York. Parents don’t want their kids to have to move away to find work. They want their grandkids to grow up here,” Stirpe said following Biden’s visit. “The Green CHIPS law, which I authored and passed earlier this year, provided the incentives necessary for Micron to choose to build here. And this is just the start. This new investment places our region in the spotlight for jobs, and makes us a central player in the future of this fast-growing industry.”