WOMEN IN DEFENSE TENNESSEE VALLEY CHAPTER

Transcription

1 WOMEN IN DEFENSE TENNESSEE VALLEY CHAPTER SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, AND MATHEMATICS (STEM) INITIATIVE Deborah Fraley STEM Director, TVC WID Business Development Manager Quantum Research International, Inc x cell fax dfraley@quantum-intl.com

2 WOMEN IN DEFENSE TENNESSEE VALLEY CHAPTER STEM MISSION The Tennessee Valley Chapter (TVC) of Women in Defense (WID) is taking an active role in supporting educational needs for the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Initiative that encourages young people to pursue careers in national defense and national security to eventually replace our aging workforce. WID TVC support is focused on securing financial backing from similar professional organizations, defense contractors, and local community organizations that will fund the creation of STEM educational tools for use in elementary, middle school and high school classrooms in the Tennessee Valley area.

3 WOMEN IN DEFENSE TENNESSEE VALLEY CHAPTER STEM MISSION Our STEM Initiative started in 2009 with the realization that our aging technical workforce in the Huntsville area (average age 57), both Government and industry employees, did not have a large number of young people trained in technical fields who were up and coming to eventually provide replacement capabilities when the senior level staff retire. We decided to take on the mission of adding a new element to the already ongoing STEM activities in the TN Valley area by providing hands-on tools to science teachers in the local schools that could be used to demonstrate scientific and mathematical principles to the students, supplementing lectures and standard teaching methods with tools that provide an element of participative fun to the students learning process.

4 WOMEN IN DEFENSE TENNESSEE VALLEY CHAPTER STEM MISSION We work with the Huntsville Space and Missile Defense Working Group (part of the local NDIA chapter) to obtain the majority of our funding ($5K per year) that goes toward creation of the STEM tools that are donated to local schools. We report back to the SMD Working Group annually on the products developed with this funding and receive a recurring line item in their annual budget. We partner with the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department of the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) to get the STEM tools designed and built for the participating schools through selection of engineering student teams in the senior level engineering design classes that take on our projects by choice from a list of available projects.

5 WOMEN IN DEFENSE TENNESSEE VALLEY CHAPTER STEM MISSION Typical Process/Schedule for a STEM Tool over two semesters: WID STEM Director coordinates between customer school and UAH student design team to determine requirements for tool and assist with customer outreach activities that create stakeholders and teach engineering students about customer interface First Semester activities include final resolution of requirements, initial system architecture concept, patent searches, functional and safety evaluations, concept of operations, preliminary functional baseline, risk assessment and issue mitigations, structural analysis, potential manufacturing techniques, test planning, cost analysis, and two formal reviews, culminating in a preliminary design review Second Semester activities include finalization of all elements from the first semester that produces a final design, build and test of the tool, two formal reviews, and presentation of the completed tool to the students at the customer school An additional element to this process includes mentoring of the engineering student design teams by our STEM Director who possesses 35 years of engineering experience as a defense contractor

6 WOMEN IN DEFENSE TENNESSEE VALLEY CHAPTER STEM MISSION We have presented 17 STEM tools to local schools in the TN Valley area and to the Sci- Quest Hands-On Science Center over the course of our program, including: Fluid Flow Demonstrator Wimshurst Machine Tabletop Wind Tunnel Learning Stations reconfigurable stations equipped with computer systems for research Earthquake Simulator Pulley System of Systems Demonstrator Ballistic Pendulum Trebuchet Catapult Solar System Model CO2 Race Car Launch System Tabletop Catapult Solar Roller Coaster Solar Race Cars Energy Racers Hybrid Engine Ping Pong Ball Shooting Gallery Water Distillation Unit

7 WOMEN IN DEFENSE - TVC TOOLS DELIVERED TO AREA SCHOOLS PULLEY SYSTEM OF SYSTEMS FOR PROVIDENCE MIDDLE SCHOOL

8 WOMEN IN DEFENSE TVC TOOLS DELIVERED TO AREA SCHOOLS EARTHQUAKE SIMULATOR FOR PROVIDENCE MIDDLE SCHOOL

9 WOMEN IN DEFENSE TVC TOOLS DELIVERED TO AREA SCHOOLS LEARNING STATION FOR MT CARMEL ELEMENTARY

10 WOMEN IN DEFENSE TVC TOOLS DELIVERED TO AREA SCHOOLS TABLETOP CATAPULT FOR WILLIAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL

11 WOMEN IN DEFENSE TVC TOOLS DELIVERED TO STUDENT MUSEUMS SOLAR ROLLER COASTER FOR SCI-QUEST

12 WOMEN IN DEFENSE TVC TOOLS DELIVERED TO STUDENT MUSEUMS SOLAR RACER FOR SCI-QUEST

13 WOMEN IN DEFENSE TVC TOOLS DELIVERED TO STUDENT MUSEUMS PING PONG BALL SHOOTING GALLERY FOR SCI-QUEST

14 WOMEN IN DEFENSE TENNESSEE VALLEY CHAPTER STEM MISSION In 2014 we worked three projects: Water Distillation Unit for Discovery Middle School Marble Roller Coasters for Mt Carmel Elementary School Mobile Experimentation Station for Sci-Quest

15 WOMEN IN DEFENSE - TVC PROJECTS FOR 2014 WATER DISTILLATION UNIT FOR DISCOVERY MIDDLE SCHOOL

16 WOMEN IN DEFENSE - TVC PROJECTS FOR 2014 MARBLE ROLLER COASTERS FOR MT CARMEL ELEMENTARY

17 WOMEN IN DEFENSE - TVC PROJECTS FOR 2014 MOBILE EXPERIMENT CART FOR SCI-QUEST