Photo Gallery   Raytheon volunteers help students create balloon-powered cars. Volunteers help Mindbender campers prepare to launch rockets in the CTE campus parking lot. The rockets were constructed by campers using recycled water bottles.

Mindbender Academy bent and challenged 150 brains this summer and as a result, most of the FISD students who possess those brains have decided to pursue more science and technical classes in the coming school year.

Mindbender is a math, science, engineering, and technology academy for FISD middle school students. Held at the FISD Career and Technical Education Center, the latest summer session of Mindbender ended Friday, June 18. The weeklong camp for 150 students is unique to Frisco ISD. The camp is a program of the Frisco Education Foundation and is run by the foundation staff, board, and committee members along with FISD staff, several volunteers from the community, past and present Leadership Frisco class members, and area businesses and corporations. Other entities also provide sponsorship or contribute to curriculum.

Mindbender is designed to be hands-on and allow students to understand that engineering and other science-based businesses flourish because of the ability to experiment and brainstorm ideas. Raytheon and Alcatel-Lucent provided volunteers, AmerisourceBergen, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Sanyo provided funds and Sci-Tech Discovery and Computer Explorers, along with Raytheon and FISD educators, contributed to the curriculum.

“It is important for corporate citizens to engage with our students on many levels. Time and talent are valued greatly and make a direct impact on our young people,” said Allison Miller, Director of the Frisco Education Foundation.

“We cannot do this alone,” Miller continued. “Peter Burns (Alcatel-Lucent), committee chair for Mindbender 2010, did an outstanding job of rallying the community and businesses around the camp and its purpose. This coupled with a hard working committee made up of dedicated people such as Dave Coates, Keith Britton, Kevin Thompson, Heather Bowers, Stephanie Bullit, and Lawanda Penland (Raytheon) is what made this camp run. FISD staff members Eva Coleman (Broadcast Journalism), Ken Strong (Engineering), Chris Patterson (Engineering), and Tina Littlejohn (Science) were able to share with the campers their area of expertise and what FISD has to offer them as students in our district,” Miller said.

The passion that these volunteers have for their areas of expertise definitely rubbed off on the students.  Here’s what parent Diedre Parish had to say about Mindbender: “As a parent, I am very pleased with the enthusiasm I saw in my girls at the mention of Mindbender! They were exposed via hands-on activities to current technology and applications. They experienced something new every day, whether it was forensics, engineering, robotics, or nanotechnology. Mindbender got my girls excited about science."

Peter Burns of Alcatel-Lucent served as committee chairman for this year’s Mindbender. He says the goal of mindbender is to challenge students to think and do things outside their comfort zone in a fun environment. Burns said he was particularly impressed to watch the students who had not been to Mindbender before. Many seemed a little unsure of the camp at first but by the end of the week they had become excited about the experience. “It helps for them to learn to take on a challenge. It will help them later in life no matter what they decide to do. They have learned to meet a challenge by going one step at a time.”

All of the corporate and business partners have made Mindbender a big success. When registration opened this past spring, the response was so huge that the Frisco Education Foundation had to increase the number of campers from 100 to 150.

Miller says she is very happy with the growing success of Mindbender Academy and with how the sponsors and volunteers are working to make it better each year. “Every volunteer group is important and the volunteers were great with the students this year,” Miller said.  Raytheon was a huge component in this year’s Mindbender success.  Miller noted that this year Raytheon not only donated $15,000 to the academy, but also provided human resources and curriculum guidance.

In light of this level of involvement, FISD asked Lynn Mortenson, Director of the Texas and RVS Engineering and Network Concentric Systems of Raytheon, to discuss her observations as a volunteer at Mindbender. Her comments made after a day of helping students construct cars from styro-foam, popsicle sticks and balloons are as follows:

How many Raytheon volunteers came to Mindbender?

30 Raytheon Volunteers

What does making a balloon car teach – force, energy, mass relationships?

The balloon car activity teaches students to understand the various forces that are on an object (in this case the balloon car) while stationary and in motion.  When forces like balloon thrust, drag force, friction force, etc. are in equilibrium while the balloon car is in motion, the car will move at a constant speed.  Unbalanced forces, like a loss of balloon thrust, will cause the balloon car to lose velocity and eventually come to a stop, hopefully in 1st place.  In addition, the students learn to develop and design their car using various engineering principles such as aerodynamics concepts, friction force effects, size and weight properties, and structural design considerations.  Students also learn about design trade study concepts like brainstorming, build, test, redesign, etc.

Does hands-on creation help create pathways in the brain that explain math and science perhaps better than a demonstration by someone else?

It's our experience that there is no better way to become excited about science, technology, engineering or math than to have a hands-on activity where the student solves a problem, maybe even with a failure or two along the way.  We've held many workshops and events with students that have provided hands-on activities. These activities have encouraged the students to be innovative about a solution, to think about the many possibilities and to experience the principles of math and science all while having fun.  Our goal is to demonstrate to these students that they can do anything they put their minds to. 

What are Raytheon’s goals in supporting Mindbender?

By the time these students complete college, it's predicted there will be a severe shortage of science, technology, engineering and math professionals.  The way to avert this shortage is to keep students today interested in these careers.  Our goal is to show these students that a career in engineering can be exciting and provide unlimited opportunities to impact the future.  The Raytheon partnership with the Mindbender Academy has provided a unique opportunity for Raytheon volunteers to impact 150 students with the hope of creating the next generation of engineers and technologists.

What were some of the interesting comments or observations heard from campers?

Observations

Our volunteers observed that the balloon car activity was a challenge for the campers, as it should have been, yet they were very engaged, excited and curious.  They were also creative, which was evident in their designs. Raytheon had some basic requirements for designing the cars, but each camper had to be creative and innovative in designing their car.  This in many cases meant going beyond the basic requirement.  Once the campers built their cars, they went to the test range for trial runs to proof their design, and then went back to the design table to make adjustments and to make their designs better as some of the cars did not perform as expected.

Comments

We heard lots of interesting comments.  Here are a few of the more memorable ones:

• We asked the campers what they learned from this exercise.  One camper said: A bigger balloon did not mean more power, but it depends on how the balloon was placed on the car.  Another:  Your first design may not work the way you thought it would and you had to go back and redesign after you tried out your car.

• One camper was getting ready to make a trial run and had a pair of scissors in his hand.  In talking to a volunteer, the camper said they were going to punch a hole in the balloon to let the air out.  The volunteer made the comment that if the student won, how would he or she compete since the camper wouldn’t be able to use the balloon again?  The camper had not thought about that and went back to redesign the car.  This is just an example of how we were making them think about the design of their car.

• An FISD employee mentioned that they were impressed with some all-girl teams and how engaged and excited they were about this activity.  The employee mentioned that they’ve noticed how girls often are not as involved in Math and Science because perhaps they had not been encouraged to do this, but noted that the girls were really enjoying the activity.

• If a passerby came in during the final round when the Mindbender camper was competing against the Raytheon engineer, they would have thought we were holding a pep rally.  Everyone was chanting for the camper competing against Raytheon.  Even when Raytheon’s car beat the camper’s car, everyone still cheered for the camper.  This was great and exactly what we want to happen with the competition.

• Some of the campers asked: "Are you guys going to be here all week?”  It was a testament that they enjoyed this activity - so much so that they wanted us to be there all week.