Student Racing Challenge - NASCAR STEM Initiative

PRIORITY PARTS YOUR TEAM CAN’T BE CAUGHT WITHOUT

In my last post I wrote about the detox our team was undertaking. A week has since passed and I am happy to report that the detox has turned our team a full 180°. We actually know what we own! We also know what we’re desperate to own! We’ve catalogued and organized all parts into a 36 drawer chest with room to spare and created laminated inventory sheets organized by drawer number to help us keep track of parts on hand and parts required for purchase. Oh, what a feeling!

I am also happy to report that last week’s post has generated some chatter about what parts should be considered as high priority for ordering on a limited budget. Thank you Judy Nova for started that ball rolling. Here are my two cents.

If your team operates in the same world as we do, with limited budgets, and frustratingly slow turn-around times for orders thanks in part to an antiquated purchase order system our school uses, you need to be very selective about what you order. For us, that means ordering primarily those parts that:

My last few posts were all written under the pretense that things are actually happening on your team and that each team member is on board and actively contributing. Forgive me if this was a glaring assumption on my part. In fact, as I write this, it’s been two weeks since a single member of our team has done anything. Granted, we’ve all been tending to end of semester exams and other 1st semester wrap up responsibilities but, with most of my students off for four days after, I can’t say that not having enough time has been the issue. This got me thinking. What type of student does it take to have a high performing team? Here are my top three:

REACHING OUT

Exhausted, from the latest string of ridiculously busy days at school spent writing exams, reviewing with students, grading, packing, moving out of my temporary trailer into my new lab post-renovation, then unpacking (albeit minimally), and trying to put together some semblance of new classroom acceptable for student use, I struggle trying to come up with a topic for this week’s post. Then, like the shock from a cold glass of water thrown into my face, it comes to me. There’s no way I would have gotten through this crazy busy time without reaching out to others for help.

Divide and Conquer

In the last five years I have founded a new project-based learning (PBL) team three times in two different schools. This means, I have started and led a first time, first year team, with no resources (money, tools, supplies, mentors, etc.) three times as part of three completely different STEM-based PBL initiatives – Ten80-Nascar Student Racing Challenge, Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams, and FIRST Robotics – at two different schools. With each of these first time initiatives we raised close to $10,000 to cover our costs, and fully completed the project we set out to accomplish according to our design vision, all in eight months AND on time.

I am often asked “how the heck did you guys pull all that off in such a short period of time?” followed by, “how did you survive doing that three times over?” My answer to the second question is that I am a glutton for punishment and live for start-up adventures. More importantly, my answer to the first question is to divide and conquer.

Comments and Tips for a Successful SRC Project Team

Post 1: Coach’s Introduction

Hello Ten80 Student Racing Challenge Teams! I am thrilled to be bringing you Coach’s Corner, the newest addition to the Ten80 SRC Nascar STEM Initiative blog series,  where you can read about my comments and tips to running a successful SRC project team.

I have been involved with project teams for almost 15 years as a founder, coach, and manager of several project teams across education, business, and manufacturing.  By day, I am the coach of the Hopewell HS Tech Devils SRC race team and Engineering Technology Instructor at Hopewell HS in Hopewell, VA.  By night, I run BreakThru Achievement Solutions LLC, a company I founded to provide products and services designed to help students reach their full potential.

 My partners and I at Ten80 Education, like most of you, are wrapping up the school year and gearing up for summer camps and clubs.  I want to share with you some of the projects students have worked on this year as a part of the Ten80 Student Racing Challenge: NASCAR STEM Initiative. 

Every student’s goal in this STEM program is to improve performance and design of their 1:10 scale radio-controlled (RC) car.  One of the most exciting new ways to do that has been developed in a partnership between Ten80, Eaglecrest High School and Horizon Fuel Cell.  This project was submitted for judging in the P.I.T. Now (P.I.T. = Petroleum Independent Transportation) and Creative Engineering categories.  P.I.T. Now challenges students to devise new ideas toward a more sustainable transportation system.  This project may also help teams win the endurance races in 2011-12.