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Technology Space Camp

Timothy Brower Oregon Institute of Technology

Abstract

In July 2001, Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT) hosted a weeklong resident Technology Space Camp for high school students from Oregon, Washington and Colorado. The stude nts participated in various class and team building projects applicable to zero gravity space science and exploration. The highlight of their week was the design and construction of a zero gravity experiment.

In August 2001, the OIT NASA Science Team subsequently flew the high school student's experiment, along with the college student's own experiment onboard NASA's KC-135A aircraft, the Weightless Wonder. Under the guise of their senior project, the OIT students proposed, designed and built their experiment through participation in the Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program. A primary objective of participation in the NASA program is to provide an outreach component for the project, hence, the Technology Space Camp.

The partnership between NASA, a college senior project team and high school students, illustrates how industry, higher education, and pre-college initiatives can work jointly to promote Engineering Technology. Ongoing participation in the NASA program is used as a tool to recruit top students throughout the state of Oregon and the Northwest. A second Technology Space Camp is planned for Summer 2002. This paper will discuss the organization, implementation, and course material of the Technology Space Camp, with the expectation that other technology schools might use this information as a blueprint for their participation in similar programs.

I. Background

In order to place the motivation for hosting the Technology Space Camp in proper context, a description of the structure of the Senior Project Course and NASA's Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program is relevant.

Senior Projects at OIT - The OIT Mechanical Engineering Technology (MET) senior project course is a comprehensive group design project and consists of a three-quarter sequence. This sequence applies material from prior course work, along with concepts of project management, design optimization, and other material related to a group-engineering project. In the first term, teams of two to six students conduct a literature search concerning their chosen project and write a proposal that details their approach and outlines how funding will be secured. This proposal acts as a contract between the facilitating faculty and student team members.

"Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conf erence & Exposition Copyright ã 2001, American Society for Engineering Education"

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Brower, T. (2002, June), Technology Space Camp Paper presented at 2002 Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada. 10.18260/1-2--11244