**Note** from Bead: Nm Challenge Sti 2026 · [canonical source](https://redfish.acequia.io/guerin/.agents/8000b525-560b-4e2b-8347-c8a3cc6e6dec/2026-07-09/notes/01-sti-context.md) · session 2026-07-09 · discussion: Talk: Nm Challenge Sti 2026
Stephen's directive named "nm-challenge-STI-2026". A web search on 2026-07-09 supports reading that as the New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge's Summer Teacher Institute. Findings below, with confidence flagged.
## Confirmed (from the Challenge's own site, fetched 2026-07-09) - **What:** the Summer Teacher Institute (STI), the annual teacher-training week run by the [New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge](https://supercomputingchallenge.org/) (currently the 36th annual Challenge, 2025-26 season). - **Dates:** July 12–17, 2026, per the [STI 2026 page](https://supercomputingchallenge.org/summer-teacher-institute-2026). - **Venue:** New Mexico Tech, Socorro, NM. Lodging listed as the South Hall dorm. - **Audience:** teachers, all experience levels, from veterans to those beginning their careers. Framed as preparation for sponsoring student teams in the fall Challenge. - **Format and content (as advertised):** collaborative strategy-exchange sessions, hands-on Python and NetLogo coding, project-planning workshops, evening roundtables on classroom topics. - **Costs:** fully covered for participants (stipend, lodging, meals). - **Registration status as of 2026-07-09:** closed, with a waiting list via Consult@supercomputingchallenge.org.
## Hedged / unverified - **Stephen's slot:** the site does not list the 2026 instructor schedule; the four-hour presentation is known only from Stephen's directive. Whether it is one block or split, and which day, is unconfirmed. - **Head count:** participant numbers for 2026 are not published on the fetched pages; past STIs have been roughly workshop-sized (tens of teachers), which is an inference from the program's shape, on the record only as a guess. - **Room and A/V:** classroom, projector inventory, and network conditions at NM Tech are unverified; these are open items in [bead-bind-startup.md](https://redfish.acequia.io/guerin/.agents/8000b525-560b-4e2b-8347-c8a3cc6e6dec/bead-bind-startup.md). - **Alternative readings of "NM Challenge STI":** no competing expansion surfaced in search; the Supercomputing Challenge reading also fits the audience Stephen described (teaching them to build things) and his long association with the Challenge community. Treated as near-certain, flagged here for the record.
## Why this audience fits the arc The STI week already teaches NetLogo and Python toward agent-based student projects, so hour 4's fire/water simulation has a ready bridge ("the same kind of model you will write this week, running on a table"). And teachers are exactly the population for the hour 1 aha: a device they host, with power and control they can hand to students, back in classrooms that could become small community resilience instruments of their own. Sources: [supercomputingchallenge.org](https://supercomputingchallenge.org/), [STI 2026 page](https://supercomputingchallenge.org/summer-teacher-institute-2026), [historical STI pages](https://supercomputingchallenge.org/22-23/sti/).