Kids on the YMCA’s after-school daycare program made cranes, catapults and other contraptions with K’nex and LEGO toys during a special program Thursday.

The Sylvan Learning Center of Suffolk partnered with the Suffolk Family YMCA to present the program to inspire the next generation of professionals to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math.

About a dozen children participated. Sylvan staff showed them how to put the pieces together and even program the LEGO Mindstorms EV3 robot to move via tablet.

Each of the kids was wearing a sticker that said “future engineer.”

“What we’re doing is giving each kiddo exposure to engineering and inspiring them to explore their potential for careers in the STEM world,” said Kim Teixeira, owner of Sylvan Learning Center in Suffolk.

Donna Carter helped students connect the LEGOs along with the dots behind the projects themselves. Carter is a test engineer with Newport News Shipbuilding with nearly 20 years of industry experience and was there to explain what futures are possible through STEM learning.

“We’re just talking to them about the need for strong engineers in the field,” Carter said.

Middle-schoolers sat around the table tweaking their masterpieces. Forest Glen Middle School students Madeline Huffman, 12, and Kaylina Overton, 11, worked together to make a bridge of different-colored K’nex.

“This was one of the more difficult kinds of bridges they chose to build, but they got it done really fast,” Teixeira said.

The two friends felt good about finishing their project after initial setbacks.

“It was hard to figure out what goes where and how to connect stuff,” Huffman said.

Sixth-graders Mackenzie Morningstar, Isabella Dayton and Khareem Goode learned how to code the EV3 robot and control it.

“It reminded me of my dad, because he’s an engineer,” Morningstar said. “It was really fun to code that.”

Some of the students weren’t interested in thinking about careers in engineering or science.

“The only science-y stuff I’d be doing is biology with animals,” Huffman said.

But staff were quick to explain about the diversity within STEM. Rachel Allen, for instance, pivoted towards chemistry in college because she was less than thrilled about computer programming. She graduated in December and plans to go to graduate school at the University of Arizona in the fall.

She encouraged the kids to keep learning with open minds.

“There’s so many different things you can do that are STEM-related,” she said. “The opportunities are just endless for it.”