The Port Townsend Science Technology Engineering and Math Club is celebrating its 10th year, and to commemorate a decade full of science and service, the club is hosting the Jefferson County Pandemic Musical Time Capsule.

The goal is to capture the creativity of their community.

The student-led organization is well-known for their skills in robotics, having competed in several statewide and nationwide competitions. But as a club, they do more than just that.

“The other big factor of the program is the outreach component and the community involvement,” said STEM Club ambassador, Ella Ashford.

Serving the community is a large part of what these students do. They teach robotics courses to the young students at Salish Coast Elementary School; they are involved in environmental projects; and they host STEM and band camps for others.

The band camp music program is a recent extension of the club’s activities, adding in an arts and music aspect and making the organization the STEAM Club.

“Traditionally, we’ve always called ourselves the Port Townsend STEM club, but this year we really focused on expanding into the STEAM idea,” explained Nathaniel Ashford, a band member and captain of the Olympic Dragons FIRST FTC robotics team.

From costumery for competitions to beautifying their robots, they’ve always incorporated the arts in their past club endeavors, Ashford said.

“This year we really wanted to take a look even deeper into that,” he added.

A portion of the club for the past five years, their band and the music program was incorporated as a part of performances in their Kinetic sculpture races. They have since broadened their act to the Kiwanis Stars of Tomorrow, the Uptown Street Fair, and Farm Band Camps.

However, this year (along with the last), opportunities to showcase the band’s skills have been nonexistent due to the global COVID pandemic.

Enter the idea for the Pandemic Musical Time Capsule.

It’s a project meant to fill the gap left by all of their COVID-canceled events, especially the Kiwanis-sponsored Stars of Tomorrow talent show. The time capsule will give the club members an opportunity to share their music and the music of others with the community.

The time capsule is a way to see everyone’s unique experience during the pandemic, explained Ella Ashford.

“It’s nice to be able to share with the community what you’ve been doing and what you’ve been working on,” added band member Rachel Doan.

“It’s really an opportunity for the community to express creativity and get a chance to learn from each other about what everybody has to offer,” said Nathaniel Ashford.

In collaboration with KPTZ, and because of a recent ARTSWA grant, the musical time capsule will embody the creativity of the community’s youth — those who turned to music and arts during the pandemic.

As a part of their outreach, the club is handling the technical aspects of the time capsule, getting submissions, and putting them into a format KPTZ can use for broadcast.

The end result will also be presented to the Jefferson County Historical Society to preserve for future club and community members.

“I also think it’s so valuable that people will get to, hopefully, in the future, look back and really be able to recognize how we felt together as a community,” said club member Adeline Gellert DePalma.

The time capsule is a community-wide endeavor, and Jefferson County residents up to the age of 21 are encouraged to submit their original works, cover songs, or spoken poetry to the project.

Audio-recorded submissions are being received at forms.gle/YnBDyzoUqDrc8xw3A. Only a select number of submissions will be highlighted on the KPTZ radio feature.

To learn more about the club and its project, visit ptstemclub.org.