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CMU's CREATE Lab hosts
site visit with TFIM team |
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As part of their participation in The Future is Mine, students from Brownsville Area High School and schools in 25 other districts hope they’ll get a chance to involve themselves in a project that Carnegie Mellon University’s Community Robotics Education and Technology Empowerment (CREATE) Lab is planning with a goal of capturing the voices and aspirations of the region’s youth.
The Brownsville team expressed enthusiasm for CMU’s proposed Stories project when they visited the CREATE lab to learn what its scientists do, what technologies they’re using and how they try to engage the community. Although CMU is still working to obtain funding for the Stories project, students not only said they hoped to contribute, some also envisioned a future for it beyond Southwestern Pennsylvania.
Brownsville TFIM members along with their advisor, Lynn Jellots (far right), collaborate on a project during their visit.
“I hope this blows up into a nationwide phenomenon,” said Kourtney, a young woman who reflected the enthusiasm of the Brownsville group.
Clara Phillips, a member of the CREATE Lab team, demonstrates the Gigapan.
The Brownsville team also marveled at the uses of Gigapan photography, which uses robotically controlled cameras to shoot detailed, high-resolution images that are stitched together into panoramas. The technology, which was developed at CMU in cooperation with NASA, enables viewers not only to see the panoramas, but also to explore them in minute detail by zooming in on the parts that make up the whole. As the students got a chance to try out the technology themselves, their impressions of it and the CREATE lab ranged from “awesome” and “amazing” to “inspiring.” Click here to take a look at the short project the students were able to complete during their visit to the CREATE Lab.
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CREATE Lab team members give a quick tutorial before students worked on their own.
Brownsville’s experience at CMU is just one of dozens that TFIM teams across the region are undertaking to explore careers, make connections with Southwestern Pennsylvania employers, build job-related skills and learn about post-secondary training and education options. Among others that took place recently: students at Steel Center Area Vocational and Technical School met with a representative of Monster.com to learn how to pursue jobs and what employers look for when they hire; and students from South Allegheny High School visited Douglas Education Center, a Monessen-based school that offers an array of technical and trade curricula. Please visit the TFIM website to view more projects.
It didn't take long for everyone to grasp the technology and complete a mini project.
TFIM teams all will have additional opportunities for employer site visits in April when they cap their work for the year at the annual Student Leadership Conference. (The Consortium will convene TFIM advisors March 18 to firm up plans for the conference.)
Site visits, however, are only part of the TFIM program. In addition, students perform three projects — one individually and two in teams — to examine career options and to share what they’re learning and engage their peers and their districts’ younger students in developing their own career directions.
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