The Troubadour: How About a FREE Stem Camp Sponsored by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Maintenance Week at the Space Center: It was All Hands on Deck! The Imaginarium.

FREE MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) STEM Camp

Our friends from MIT will be stopping by on July 21st to offer some STEM activities to our community, hosted at Central Elementary. This opportunity is part of Spokes America and more information about the activities can be found on their website: www.mitspokes.com

Ages 10-17
Free
There are three different session times
Bring your own lunch

To register, go to the Christa McAuliffe Space Center's website and scroll down to the MIT camps. Register quickly, the slots fill up fast!

Maintenance Week at the Space Centers. Summer Camp Season is Here.

The concept of a maintenance week began in June 1991. I was gearing up for the Space Center's first summer camp season. We only had the Voyager that first summer and the simulator needed work - lots of work. I couldn't close the center until the school year ended - field trips you know. To get the needed maintenance/repairs done I needed to close the first week of June. I called it Maintenance Week and it stuck.

The Christa McAuliffe Space Center held their annual maintenance week the first week of June.

We start with the Magellan. When doesn't the Magellan need a bit of TLC considering it is one of the most used simulators at the CMSC. The staff are pictured in the Magellan's Engineering Hallway. The engineering panels are out of the wall being tested. The Space Center does its best to make everything installed in the simulators kid proof, but there are some kids you can't proof from. We do our best, that is all that can be said.

The Discovery Room at the CMSC was the place to go when the frazzle of wires, dust, spiders, broken wires, and paint fumes get to be too much.

The Discovery Room's white board held the ToDo list and what a ToDo list it was. Enlarge the picture and read what the outstanding staff had to do in one week's time to have the simulators ready for the first camps of the season.

Tabitha was in the Odyssey spearheading that ship's repairs. Supposedly the Odyssey wouldn't need a lot of maintenance considering it is the Space Center's newest simulator, but as I said before, there are some kids who make it their mission in life to test the durability of everything within arm's reach.

Of course, let's not forget that Maintenance Week is also a time for ship improvements. Many of the simulators, in addition to repairs, received new instruments and an overall face lift.

How many times have we had to pull up that piece of flooring in the Phoenix to repair the rope lighting? I'll tell you - too many to count. I think that part of the ship is jinxed.

And finally the Galileo. It needed a good exterior cleaning and polishing in addition to a few other odds and ends.

The ships are repaired, cleaned, polished, refurbished, and ready to leave space dock for this summer's eight weeks of summer space camps. Be sure to sign up for one of the camps. Go to the CMSC's website and choose a camp that's best for you.