Factory to Frontline

Participants at the Factor to Frontline STEMscape event engage with immersive VR technology, exploring new dimensions of learning and innovation.

What if you could walk straight into a WWII factory, crack secret genetic codes, and help piece together a soldier’s story - all in the same afternoon?

Factory to Frontline makes that possible. This STEMscape drops students right onto the WWII Home Front, but with a twist: they explore it through virtual reality and hands-on challenges that connect STEM with real history.

First stop: Rosie’s Assembly Line. Students gear up with VR headsets and step inside a busy wartime factory. They’ll see what it was like for the Black Rosies - the African American women who kept production lines moving despite facing discrimination. Students race against the clock to find the right parts and keep the factory running.

Next, they become Genetic Codebreakers. Using codon charts, they match real RNA sequences to hidden clues about historical figures who changed wartime medicine, technology, and communication.

Finally, they’re historians in training, restoring the missing words from Stanley Hayami’s WWII diary. Each clue they find brings back a piece of history that was nearly lost.

Factory to Frontline isn’t just another STEM activity. It blends science, history, and social justice into an experience that feels alive. Students see how the past connects to today’s science - and they get to try it for themselves.

One moment they’re in a VR factory, the next they’re decoding genetic clues or solving a mystery on paper. It’s fast, immersive, and gets kids thinking in new ways.

Ready to put on the headset and step back in time? Factory to Frontline is waiting.