Glitch'n

Youth-led community learning.

Young people in Phoenix build circuits that make music, and have the option to join a brief paid internship to facilitate public pop-up events. Some go on to co-teach our courses.

The drum machine from the first lesson.

How Glitch'n started

Glitch'n began in June 2025 with three free summer courses at the ASU MIX Center in downtown Mesa, Arizona. Fifty-eight young people came, many with their families, to build circuits that make sound. These video lessons are that course, free for anyone.

Funders

  • U.S. National Science Foundation
  • Qualcomm Foundation
  • Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Arizona State University

Partners

  • Boys & Girls Clubs of the Valley
  • Phoenix Conservatory of Music
  • Arizona Science Teachers Association

Why Phoenix, why now

$265 billionTSMC's planned investment in its Phoenix chip plants
67,000U.S. semiconductor jobs projected to go unfilled by 2030

Phoenix is becoming a center of chipmaking. Glitch'n teaches youth how circuits work, and offers them paid internships facilitating public science.

Sources: TSMC and the City of Phoenix, 2026; Semiconductor Industry Association, 2023.

A sustainable community loop

The community circuit A loop of three roles. Builder (hanging out) leads to Facilitator (messing around), paid to run pop-ups. Facilitator leads to Leader (geeking out), paid to co-teach. Leader teaches the next group of builders. facilitates pop-ups · paid co-teaches · paid co-teaches the next group BUILDER Hang out! FACILITATOR Mess around! LEADER Geek out! facilitates pop-ups · paid co-teaches · paid co-teaches the next group BUILDER Hang out! FACILITATOR Mess around! LEADER Geek out!
  1. BuilderTakes a free course of five two-hour sessions and learns a few baseline circuits by heart.
  2. FacilitatorShares what they have learned by helping to facilitate free public pop-up events, in a brief paid internship. They gain experience being paid for technical work, and their STEM identity grows stronger.
  3. LeaderJoins a pool of facilitators who co-teach the next course alongside trained undergraduates. Future course leaders and Glitch'n staff come from this pool.

Research and funding

Glitch'n began with seed funding from a National Science Foundation EAGER award (Advancing Informal STEM Learning). Our research team studies what youth learn when they teach, and what visitors learn from them. How the internship works