Recent AOE Outreach Activities
In early November 2012, the Boys Scouts of America Blue Ridge Mountains Council hosted a STEM summit at Claytor Lake State Park in Virginia at which volunteer aerospace and ocean engineering students and Eagle Scouts, Gerald Hudak, Seth Berry, and Brandon Smith assisted the scouts in earning the space exploration merit badge. Ed Harriman of the Blue Ridge Mountains Council was very pleased that they were able to offer this STEM event to 75 scouts and felt the AOE students did a great job. Other merit badges offered that day included, weather, fingerprinting, radio, welding, and robotics.
In February 2013, the Blue Ridge Council will host its annual major fundraising dinner with Dr. Bernhard A. Harris, Jr., as keynote speaker. Dr. Harris is an astsronaut and physician who is very proactive in STEM and the council is very excited to have him. Dr. Eric Paterson, Professor and Department head of AOE, has been asked to serve as the emcee of the fundraising dinner.
SeaPerch
Contact: Leigh McCue, mccue@vt.edu
Type of program:
Classroom Resources (e.g., microscopes, petri dishes, hands-on kits); curriculum development and dissemination (e.g., middle school unit on design, high school robotics unit, teacher training material, lesson plan series); K-12 student and youth programs.
We conduct hands-on demonstrations of underwater robotics using SeaPerches for middle and high school aged students. We provide support for teachers wishing to do complete SeaPerch design/build programs in their schools. The learning objective for the demonstrations is to provide students an introduction to robotics, design, construction, and underwater vehicles. Students engaged in design/build programs will gain these skills while having exposure to electronics and the use of hand and power tools, as well as developing a sense of 'ownership' in their team's work.
The program takes place in a classroom or non-formal (after school, clubs, camps, 4-H, etc.), or informal (museum, community, home, etc.) setting. We have 150 K - 12 youths; 90 sixth to eighth grade youths (middle); and 60 ninth to twelfth grade youths (high school). Participating university personnel includes two undergraduate, three graduate, one faculty, and one administrator. Disciplines and topics include science, technology, and engineering, and the program serves southside and/or southwest Virginia. We have used SeaPerch underwater robotics to engage students in a hands-on team engineering activity within the camps hosted by the Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Diversity (CEED) including Imagination, Computers and Technology at Virginia Tech (C-Tech2), NASA INSPIRE, and Student Transition Engineering Program (STEP).
