A Growing Interest - Washington Aerospace Scholars

The next program I want to talk about is called Washington Aerospace Scholars.
While attending Auburn Senior High School, I frequently talked with a wonderful career counselor by the name of Jon Morrow.  He was retired Air Force and I loved hearing about his experiences in the service.  I thought about joining the air force and pursuing my education that way.
One day, he came across a program called Washington Aerospace Scholars that got students interested in STEM programs and strongly encouraged me to apply.  He helped me through the application process and I was accepted to the online portion of the program.
The program was very extensive.  All students accepted into WAS were expected to read the weekly materials on space exploration, Mars history and learn about rover and orbiter missions.  Every two weeks, students were to submit an essay on an assigned topic, complete a quiz on the reading material, and work through a challenging math problem involving space topics.  The final project consisted of researching a new topic on space exploration and writing an essay and designing a graphic.  My final project was on Solar Sailing, and I really enjoyed researching the topic! It gave me a greater understanding of the concepts of space and propulsion.  I would have to say the final project was my favorite part of the online WAS experience!  The online portion of WAS was very challenging to do on top of taking two AP classes at my high school, being a full time student at the local community college, playing basketball for my high school team, and working nights.  But I really wanted to make the online experience worthwhile by being accepted to the WAS Summer Residency.  Out of about 400 students that took part in the online WAS program, 140 students were selected for the summer residency.  Luckily I was one of them!

                                  Building our Mars Rover

At the summer residency, we designed Mars rovers, built small rockets, partook in a payload lofting challenge and even did a lander challenge (egg drop).  The engineering challenges were my favorite part of the residency!  Although, I must say that the real world engineering experience proved to be very rewarding.  We were introduced to the world of an engineer and had a budget, time limit, and many other constraints that we had to work around while doing our engineering challenges.  I would say it is good to learn early what the engineering  field will be like and what to expect before you spend years educating yourself for it!

                             Launching our rocket at 60-Acre Park

The residency largely focused on all 40 students working together to design a manned mission to Mars.  There were four teams, Getting There, Living There, Working There, and the Integration Team.  Together the four teams chose how many astronauts would go to Mars and for what period of time.  Then they spent hours each day getting all the facts together and integrating this mission into a complete and viable mission to get us to Mars.  We even designed our own spacesuits and rovers for the mission!

                                           Blue Team Photos

At the end of the residency, we had accomplished SO much! It's hard to believe that so much can be done in only a week!  On top of doing everything I outlined above, we also toured some big local aviation/aerospace related companies, including the Everett Boeing Facility!  We partook in a 'Mission' in the Museum of Flight where museum visitors could view us and get a sense for what communication between the Shuttle and Mission Control is like.  We heard from  Dr. Bonnie Dunbar, the curator for the Museum of Flight and a NASA Astronaut, and briefings from scientists and engineers.  To conclude our residency, we presented the final Mission to Mars at a closing banquet with many distinguished guests, such as Dr. Bonnie Dunbar, Rusty Schweickart, and our families!

What a rewarding experience, I really do recommend that anyone who has a child interested in the sciences pass the word on.  This program taught me so much about engineering and space and I walked away knowing that I would pursue Aerospace Engineering.  It also opened SO many doors for me, AND looks great on a resume!

You can find more information about Washington Aerospace Scholars on their website:

http://www.museumofflight.org/washingtonaerospacescholars

Thanks for reading!

A Growing Interest - Project Lead the Way

I'm not one of those people who can say that I have wanted to be an astronaut, or a doctor, or really anything from a young age, I can honestly say that I had no idea which direction my life would go.

In ninth grade, there was a man who came to our school and talked about engineering.  He was sent to get kids excited about math and science and encourage us to apply for a program called Project Lead the Way (PLTW).  Project Lead the Way classes are "hands-on, based in real-world experience, and fun for students and teachers." 
I applied for the program because as a freshman, getting to work with other students designing things and then building them sounded like the hands-on learning I knew I could grow from.  They specifically encouraged girls to apply because there were only a few in the program.  I believe this opened opportunities for me.  There were only 5 students accepted from each participating junior high school, and not only was I one of them, I was the only girl.
The program consisted of classes that would be part of my normal school schedule, but the classes were held off campus.
I was part of PLTW for two years before moving to a state that didn't offer it.  I took such classes as: Introduction to Engineering Design, Principles of Engineering, and concurrent physics courses taught at PLTW.  Had I continued through the program all four years of high school I could have taken classes like Digital Electronics, and specialized courses in my desired field of engineering.
At the time I didn't think about how many doors that this program would open for me, I only thought of how fun it was to design things.  We designed and tested balsa bridges, we made sumo-bots and competed with classmates, designed water rocket cars, and developed all our designs in AutoDesk Inventor 8 3D-Modeling software.  When I began taking college level engineering courses my junior year of high school, my engineering teachers looked at my portfolio work compiled from PLTW and were astonished at the level the classes were taught.  They used my portfolio to get me college credit for every class they believed I should recieve credit for, and from 3 PLTW courses, I recieved credit for 4 college level classes. Amazing!
I am such a strong advocate for getting people involved in science, math and technology as early as possible.  That is why I started this blog.  I will be writing about all the programs I possibly can in hopes that the readers can pass information onto your children, your nieces and nephews, or even yourselves and get involved.
Project Lead the Way is offered throughout many states including Indiana, Ohio, and Utah.
Below I have posted a link to Project Lead the Way's main website and hope that if you know someone that is interested, you browse the information and check to see if PLTW is available in a school in your area!

http://www.pltw.org/

Project Lead the Way was only the beginning.  I came out of the program knowing that engineering was for me, but not yet exactly what type of engineering I had the most interest in. That came later...