For the fourth summer, teams of students took intellectual risks and tackled open-ended questions in a wide range of projects that made up Lehigh’s innovative 2016 Mountaintop program.

“For me, Mountaintop really opens up the doors to being able to do what you want,” said Harry Ambler '17, who worked on creating an engine swap kit. “It gives you your own freedom, and it shows you kind of what the real world is like. You have to be self- driven. You have to do your own thing. So there’s not someone there telling you what to do and parenting you the whole way. While we have the guidance of our advisor, we’re really open to do our own thing. I think it’s an invaluable experience that I’m getting here.”

More than 130 students participated in 22 stand-along projects at Mountaintop and Launch Bay C, the Baker Institute for Entrepreneurship, Creativity and Innovation’s multi-track student idea accelerator. This year, seven students from the Pratt Institute of Design in New York joined Lehigh students on six different projects.

Lehigh visual storyteller Stephanie Veto chronicled the student experiences on South Mountain over the summer.