Over the course of three days, a cohort of 6th graders-to-be is round-tripping to the future and back this summer, thanks to a Summer Science Initiative grant from the National Science Foundation.

Nanoworld in the Summer: Fun, Games and How the Future Will Look” it’s called, and Tuesday morning the time travelers from Studebaker, Morris and Edmunds elementary schools gathered at Studebaker for an orientation delivered by Alex Travesset, a physics and engineering professor from Iowa State University.

“The program provides an introduction on the first day where concepts will be introduced,” said Studebaker SUCCESS Case Manger Travis Jacobs. “Then, the second day will include a visit to ISU where we will do amazing demonstrations, have a picnic and visit the campus. Finally, the third day, we will meet back at Studebaker to discuss about all we have learned.”

Travesset greeted his passengers with a flurry of questions they couldn’t answer, ranging widely from atoms and molecules to federal agencies. He introduced them to the transistor, first invented in 1906, the precursor to the cell phones that most of the students carry in their pockets.

“Your phones contain more transistors than there are people on Earth,” he said. “The first transistors were so much bigger than they are now that a cell phone then would have been bigger than this school.”

Travesset invited the group to daydream.

“What would you like to see if you could invent anything?”

There were plenty of answers to that question.

“Flying cars!”

“Robots that do homework!”

“Time travel!”

Those first two may have to wait, but the last one is on the agenda for Thursday when Travesset will host the almost-middle schoolers on campus in Ames. Traveling no faster than is allowed on the interstate (nowhere near the speed of light that Einstein theorized would be the minimum required for a time machine), they will leap forward several years over the course of some 30 miles and safely return to tell about it.

The trick with transistors was to make them smaller. With adolescent horizons, it’s just the opposite.