Robotics programs are a solid option for ambitious high schoolers who want to approach the subject beyond where classroom theory leaves them. Whether it’s through writing motor controllers in C++ and Python, designing mechanical components in Fusion 360, working through SLAM algorithms that let robots map and navigate unknown spaces, or training computer vision models to help a drone detect and avoid obstacles, robotics programs offer a plethora of opportunities to learn tools and methodologies currently used in the industry. Tools like ROS 2, Gazebo, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, PyTorch, and simulation environments such as Ignition are common across these programs, and the underlying concepts draw on control theory, kinematics, reinforcement learning, embedded systems, and sensor integration. Some programs drop you into defense research on multi-agent autonomous systems and swarm robotics. Others focus on human-robot interaction, asking how people perceive and respond to robotic systems. A handful put you to work in real research labs on projects that are still ongoing, which means the work you contribute can actually feed into publications or conference presentations.
Why should you choose a program in California?
California is home to a dense concentration of institutions doing serious robotics work, providing a valuable confluence of opportunities. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena is the country’s primary center for robotic space exploration. Stanford, Caltech, UC Berkeley, UCSC, UCSB, and UCSD all run active robotics and autonomous systems research groups, many of which accept high school students directly into their labs. The Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey conducts classified and unclassified research on autonomous vehicles, multi-agent robotics, and unmanned aerial systems. In the Bay Area and Los Angeles, the commercial ecosystem adds another layer: companies working on self-driving vehicles, humanoid robots, and AI-driven automation are headquartered here, and the startup scene reflects that. Edwards Air Force Base, Sandia’s California campus in Livermore, and several major defense contractors give the state a strong applied research presence alongside the academic one. All of that means the programs based here tend to be connected to live projects, whether that’s a university lab, a national lab, or an active research agenda tied to industry.
We’ve compiled 15 strong programs across California (and a few virtual options) that offer a grounded exposure to various aspects of robotics. If, however, you’re more interested in the theoretical underpinnings of machine learning and how to apply them, you should check out this article for internships in that field.
1. Science and Engineering Apprenticeship Program (SEAP) at Naval Postgraduate School
Location: Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA
Cost: Free! Participants earn a $4,000 stipend.
Acceptance rate: Highly selective, only around ~300 placements across 38+ labs nationwide
Dates: 8 weeks in June – August, exact dates varying by lab and role
Application deadline: November 1
Eligibility: Rising high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors aged 16+. Must be U.S. citizens, though some labs accept permanent residents
You will spend eight weeks embedded in research at NPS’s Monterey campus, working alongside faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students on projects that feed into active naval science. The school’s research infrastructure includes the Center for Autonomous Vehicle Research, a Controls and Robotics Laboratory, and a Spacecraft Robotics Laboratory, and the campus even has its own airspace for field experiments! Depending on your placement, you could be contributing to multi-agent robotics and swarm systems, autonomous ground and aerial vehicle development, or robotic algorithm design for planning and perception. Past cohorts have gone out on research vessels for marine experiments alongside the lab work. The research you support is real and ongoing, and you present findings in a formal closing activity at the end of the summer.
2. MIT Beaver Works Summer Institute (BWSI)
Location: MIT Campus, Cambridge, MA, or virtual
Cost: Free for families earning under $200,000/year
Acceptance Rate: Highly competitive
Dates: Four-week summer programs
Application Deadline: March 30
Eligibility: Rising high school seniors who live or attend high school in the U.S.
BWSI runs for four weeks and is jointly delivered by MIT Lincoln Laboratory and MIT’s School of Engineering across 14 courses, with both in-person and virtual options. In the Autonomous RACECAR Grand Prix, you and your team work with MIT-designed RACECAR robots, programming them to navigate a course autonomously using sensors, control algorithms, and real-time decision-making, culminating in a competition-style Grand Prix. The Autonomous Air Vehicle Racing track goes the aerial route. It has you work through UAV electrical and aerodynamic systems, write flight control code, implement computer vision to detect obstacles and read QR codes, and apply control theory to guide the drone through an aerial challenge. The Autonomous Underwater Vehicles course adds another dimension, having you design, build, and program AUVs that must navigate an underwater obstacle course using real-time sensor feedback. On the machine learning side, CogWorks covers applied ML across audio, vision, and language through three project-based modules in Python, ranging from signal processing to convolutional neural networks, all without relying on black-box libraries.
3. Stanford SHTEM
Location: Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Cost: No cost; this is an unpaid internship
Acceptance rate: Highly selective
Dates: June 22 – August 14
Application Deadline: February 1
Eligibility: Current high school juniors or seniors who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents, aged 14+
SHTEM places you inside a Stanford research group for eight weeks, working in a team of two to five students under the supervision of Stanford faculty, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers. This program offers more interdisciplinary opportunities than other programs, and past cohorts have produced work accepted to the Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) conference. Ongoing projects span engineering, computer science, linguistics, and other fields, often in combinations that wouldn’t come up in a traditional classroom. That means reading current literature, contributing to ongoing lab work, and writing up your results in a format that could realistically feed into publication or a conference presentation. The program provides access to people working at the edge of their fields and the chance to develop your own research instincts alongside them.
4. UCSC Science Internship Program (SIP)
Location: UC Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA
Cost: $4,250 tuition and $68 non-refundable application fee. Partial and full need-based scholarships are available, and some students receive a stipend to offset the costs of attending.
Acceptance rate: Selective
Dates: June 15 – August 7
Application Deadline: February 27
Eligibility: Current high school students ages 14–17
SIP inserts you into active UCSC research groups for nine weeks to work on things like graph-based SLAM simulations for differential-drive robots using Python and ROS 2, reinforcement learning safety for autonomous agents, detecting faulty drone behaviors with multimodal large language models, and neural network architectures for deep learning applied to ocean and climate data. This variety lets you apply to projects aligned with your research area preferences and get matched with a working lab, where you contribute to real problems alongside a graduate student or postdoc mentor. The summer wraps with a presentation day where you share your work publicly.
5. UCSB Research Mentorship Program (RMP)
Location: University of California, Santa Barbara, CA
Cost: $5,675 for commuter | $13,274 for residential
Acceptance rate: Highly selective
Dates: June 15 – July 31
Application Deadline: March 9
Eligibility: High school sophomores or juniors (or outstanding first-year students) with a minimum 3.8 GPA
RMP pairs you with a UCSB faculty mentor or graduate student for seven weeks to work on a project drawn from the mentor’s existing research agenda. The available subject areas include engineering, dynamical systems, control theory, robotics, and game theory, as well as biology, chemistry, social sciences, and other fields. The program includes the GRIT Talks lecture series, where you hear directly from UCSB researchers presenting their ongoing work, and you’re embedded in university life for the full duration.
6. AFRL Scholars Program
Location: Edwards Air Force Base, Edwards, CA
Cost: Fully funded, and you earn a weekly stipend based on local pay rates for the chosen location
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Varies by placement
Dates: Summer; specific dates vary by location and project
Application Deadline: January 10
Eligibility: High school students who are at least 18 years old, U.S. citizens with at least a 3.0 GPA
Edwards AFB is home to the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Rocket Propulsion Division, spread across roughly 65 square miles of desert northeast of Los Angeles. As an intern here, you work full-time alongside AFRL scientists and engineers on research projects tied to liquid rocket engines, solid rocket motors, in-space thrusters, and related aerospace technologies. The broader AFRL network also covers autonomous systems, unmanned aerial systems, AI for aerospace applications, and drone technology, and project assignments vary depending on lab needs for a given year. The program includes professional development workshops, a career fair or forum, and access to AFRL’s network of researchers.
7. AEOP High School Internship
Location: Various US Army research labs and partner universities, California
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate: Highly competitive
Dates: June – August
Application deadline: Varies by lab position
Eligibility: High school students who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Specific roles can have additional criteria.
AEOP places you in a US Army research lab or partner university for eight weeks, where you work under the direct mentorship of professional scientists and engineers on projects tied to national priorities. California placements have historically included work in intelligent systems, embedded processing, hybrid human interfaces, and AI applications relevant to defense research. The program’s Robotics Research Center positions are specifically focused on autonomous multi-robot systems, and the scope of available research areas is broad enough to include cybersecurity, materials science, and computational fields alongside robotics-adjacent work. You commute to your assigned lab, work full-time, and receive formal mentorship from your research supervisor along with access to AEOP’s broader training resources, webinar series on STEM careers, and a near-peer mentor network connecting you with students at other labs.
8. Stanford AI4ALL
Location: Virtual or residential at Stanford University
Cost: $4,120 for online, $9,800 for residential. Financial aid is available.
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Highly selective
Dates: June 15–26 (online) or July 19–31 (residential)
Application Deadline: February 6
Eligibility: Current 9th-graders and rising 10th-graders aged 14 and older.
The two-week program is built around four research tracks: Computer Vision, Medical AI, Natural Language Processing, and Robotics. The Robotics track covers AI-powered robotic systems, including computer vision for robot perception and control systems. Regardless of track, the format involves daily lectures from Stanford researchers and industry guests, hands-on team research projects, live demos with AI companies, and career workshops. You’ll be working with peers from around the world and being mentored by people connected to the Stanford AI Lab and partner organizations from industry. The residential option adds a weekend field trip component and puts you on campus full-time.
9. Caltech Summer Research Connection (SRC)
Location: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate: Highly selective
Dates: 6 weeks in the summer
Application Deadline: Rolling
Eligibility: Currently enrolled students at Pasadena Unified School District high schools
SRC is a six-week program that places Pasadena Unified School District high school students in Caltech research groups, where they spend roughly 20 hours per week working alongside graduate students and postdocs. Project assignments depend on which faculty members are hosting that summer, and Caltech’s research spans robotics, autonomous systems, computing, engineering, physical sciences, and more, all with strong ties to JPL given its proximity. Students and teachers work in paired teams. The program has produced publication-quality work in past years, and some former participants have co-authored papers with their Caltech mentors.
10. Stanford AIMI Summer Research Internship
Location: Virtual
Cost: $2,400
Acceptance Rate: Highly selective
Dates: June 15–26 OR July 6–17
Application Deadline: February 21
Eligibility: High school students in grades 9–12, aged 14+, who are U.S. residents attending a U.S. high school
This two-week virtual program puts you on a small team working on a health AI research project, mentored by Stanford researchers and student leads from the AIMI Center. The curriculum covers machine learning fundamentals, medical imaging AI, model evaluation, clinical applications, and responsible AI practices through a mix of lectures, hands-on project sessions, and a speaker series that pulls in guests from academia, industry, healthcare, and government. Your team works toward a concrete project outcome, and you learn to frame questions, explore data, and present findings in a research context. The skills developed, particularly around model development and evaluation in real-world data settings, translate directly to robotics and autonomous systems work.
11. Evodyne Robotics High School Internship
Location: Mountain View, CA
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate: Selective
Dates: Varies by position
Application Deadline: Rolling
Eligibility: Rising high school seniors aged 16+ with a strong proficiency in CAD, advanced Python, soldering, or AI and deep learning
Evodyne is a robotics startup in downtown Mountain View that designs and builds its own robots in-house, including quadruped robot dogs, robotic arms, and a life-sized humanoid. As an intern, you work at the research lab on actual product development rather than practice projects. Past interns have redesigned the EvoDog quadruped into an upgraded version, built spline pathfinding algorithms and integrated them with Pure-Pursuit for drivetrain kinematics, developed self-balancing algorithms for four-legged locomotion, created virtual physics simulations using ROS 2, Ignition Gazebo, and URDF files, and redesigned mechanical components in Fusion 360 for 3D printing. You also serve as a teaching assistant for the younger students coming through Evodyne’s programs, which adds a mentorship dimension to the role. The tools you’ll use span Python, C++, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, CAD software, and simulation environments, so incoming proficiency in at least one of those areas is required.
12. UCSD Research Experience for High School Students (REHS)
Location: San Diego Supercomputer Center, UC San Diego, La Jolla, CA
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate: Highly selective
Dates: June 8 – July 31
Application Deadline: March 15
Eligibility: Current high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors who are California residents with a minimum 3.0 GPA. Must be aged 16+, and one year each of high school chemistry or biology is recommended.
REHS is an eight-week volunteer program through the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UCSD, where you’re paired with a computational researcher and contribute to an established project over the course of the summer. The center’s work spans AI, data science, bioinformatics, climate modeling, and high-performance computing, so project content depends on which mentors have openings in a given year. You learn how research actually functions in a supercomputing environment: reading literature relevant to your project, contributing to methodology and analysis, and presenting your work. Around 70% of past participants have gone on to pursue computer science or engineering majors in college.
13. UC Merced Inclusive Interaction Lab High School Internship
Location: Virtual
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate: Extremely selective
Dates: 12 weeks during the summer
Application Deadline: Second week of April
Eligibility: High school students from the Central Valley and the Bay Area
This 12-week virtual program takes four students per cycle into active human-computer interaction research at UC Merced. The lab’s work sits at the intersection of computer science, cognitive science, human factors, accessibility, virtual reality, and applied AI, with a specific focus on making computer systems more usable for people with physical or cognitive differences. Past interns have worked on projects spanning gestural interaction, stress detection using wearable sensors, personal assistant design, emotion recognition, humanoid robot perception (including a study exploring how different populations perceive and respond to humanoid robots), and Morse code input interfaces for touchscreens. You will work roughly 20 hours per week with real flexibility around your schedule, receive direct mentorship, and learn to structure a project from initial idea through to a working result.
14. UCSD IEM OPALS
Location: UC San Diego, La Jolla, CA
Cost: $3,000
Acceptance rate: Selective
Dates: July 6 – July 31
Application Deadline: April 19
Eligibility: Current high school and community college students aged 14+
OPALS runs a four-week intensive at UC San Diego’s Institute of Engineering in Medicine, where you work on interdisciplinary projects at the intersection of engineering, AI, and biomedical science. Project areas include AI-driven biological data analysis, AI for healthcare applications, biomedical imaging and instrumentation, computational neuroscience, and engineering and systems design. In practical terms, that means you might work on calcium response analysis in neurodegenerative disease cells, machine-learning-based image processing, cellular nanotechnology, or stress response modeling in cell systems. You will get to work alongside researchers and graduate students, attend lectures, and present your work in a research talk or poster session at the end of the program.
15. Sandia National Laboratories High School Internship
Location: Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, CA
Cost: No cost; these are paid internships.
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; varies by department
Dates: Available year-round, allows for part-time work for up to 25 hours per week at a local Sandia site during the academic term
Application Deadline: Rolling, positions are posted on the careers page as they become available.
Eligibility: Students aged 16+, U.S. citizenship often required for security-related roles, enrolled full-time in high school, and with a GPA of 3.0.
Sandia’s California campus in Livermore is one of the country’s premier national security research facilities, and high school interns are placed into working technical teams across disciplines that include engineering design, software development, cybersecurity, intelligent systems, and materials science. You will work full-time for up to 12 weeks, contribute to real projects alongside career scientists and engineers, and gain access to Sandia’s professional development programming, including an intern symposium and career fair. The breadth of available placements varies year to year depending on staffing needs, and applications are submitted directly through Sandia’s external careers portal. Year-round part-time arrangements are also available for students who attend schools close to the Livermore site.
One more option – Horizon Academic Research Program
If you’re looking for a competitive mentored research program, consider applying to Horizon’s Research Seminars and Labs! This is a selective virtual research program that lets you engage in advanced research and develop a research paper on a subject of your choosing. Horizon has worked with 1000+ high school students so far and offers 600+ research specializations for you to choose from. You can find the application link here!
Image source: UC Santa Cruz