A group of young people have been using a variety of tools at the Calumet City Public Library to reach their goals, and having a ball while they were at it.
Part of an activity rooted in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, the youths now are poised to put the skills they’ve learned to use after being recruited to help Reggy the Purple Party Dude at the Mascot Hall of Fame in Whiting, Indiana.
“At this age, the kids like to have an underlying motivation that’s not just, ‘I want to learn,’ so the story is to help this mascot build a sports course,” said Amanda Thompson, CEO of Explore Interactive, an organization based at Purdue University that developed and is piloting the program in collaboration with MindLabs and the nonprofit Act Now Illinois.
As she worked to develop her portion of the course, Brianna Chrusfield, 12, was intrigued by the process of getting a small ball into a net using various materials on her tablet computer, such as a wheel, screw, pulley and lever.
“I learned that I can do different materials to try to get the ball in the side of the net,” said Brianna, who lives in Calumet City with her family. “I can be very creative with it. I already started a little something of my own to get the ball inside the goal.
“I just think it’s very cool.”
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She and 14 other teens are gearing up to take their engineering projects to the Mascot Hall of Fame on Aug. 9, where their work will come to life at the museum.
“They can essentially bring what they built out of their tablets and they’ll be able to see it larger than life and in that setting that’s Reggy’s home,” Thompson said.
The setting of the program’s culmination, along with Reggy’s antics, are part of the fun.
“They’ll just see this mascot, he’s huge, the museum is beautiful, they’ll just get to run through it and do all these STEM exhibits,” Thompson said.
She added she was glad the students would have a chance to showcase their projects there before the museum’s planned closure Sept. 14.
“I work with a lot of experiential learning and am a strong believer in more kids learning about concepts by building them and doing it in a fun setting,” she said.
Le’Vetta Parker, coordinator in Program Development, Youth Development Services at the Calumet City library, has been having some fun herself, working with Chrusfield and the other teens on their projects.
Parker said the students are using the technology to create different scenarios and test different theories of force in motion, such as “how much force is needed to get the item to go in the direction they want it to go and what speed.”
“It’s like building an amusement park, building different roller coasters, different structures to see how things work,” she said.
They’re doing the project as part of a summer camp through the Calumet City Youth Services Development Program, which is led by Parker along with Saprina Jones. Other camp adventures this summer include cooking and running a restaurant, making body scrubs, lip balms and the science behind the processes, healthy relationships and field trips.
This is the first summer for the MindLabs program, which is also a learning experience for Parker.
“It’s amazing,” Parker said. “It’s the newness of it, being able to create something in virtual reality.
“The kids get it right away.”
Janice Neumann is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.