Laser Show Demonstration at the Christa McAuliffe Space Center. Imainarium Theater

James Porter and Dad Perry in the Crow's Nest

     For me, Saturday mornings start at Renaissance Academy's The Space Place for the 8:30 A.M. Coding Club.  Afterwords it's off to the Christa McAuliffe Space Center in Pleasant Grove where I'm working hard to fill Tabitha Rick's shoes as the Center's new Outreach Coordinator.  Tabitha was so good at her job that the learning curve I'm facing seems, at times, overwhelming.  Thankfully Tabitha is always one phone call away and ready to help.  Occasionally her husband Matt will answer the phone as the Space Center's Help Line located in New Delhi, India (he has a convincing accent). 

     I had an 11:00 A.M. meeting with James Porter, the Center's director, to discuss a few upcoming department items. Afterwards, James invited me into the planetarium to watch a demo of the Space Center's upcoming laser show.  I finished the call with Tabitha, entered the planetarium, and found James and his dad Perry in the crow's nest (planetarium controls) polishing up an item or two.  

     With my Troubadour reporter's hat on, I had my phone out ready to record bits and pieces of the show and wow - it was better than I expected.  The lasers are brilliantly bright, the planetarium's sound system is perfect for rock music, and the smoke machines kept the room smoky enough for the lasers but not London fog smokey.  Getting motion sick was another of my concerns but that didn't happen either.  It was a fantastic show. I don't think Pleasant Grove understands how lucky it is to have this state of the art planetarium.  

     I took bits of my records and put them together to make a short video of my experience.  COPYRIGHT NOTICE: I removed the soundtrack to the video as requested. The Space Center is finalizing the licensing fee.  Instead I found a royalty free piece of rock music to add to the video for fun's sake.  

    

Watch for more Laser Show news on this blog or visit the Space Center's Facebook Page for details.  

Imaginarium Theater

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I Stand Amazed at What InfiniD Has Done. Imaginarium Theater

      

     I have nothing but praise to bestow on InfiniD Learning today.  In fact, this post will be a written testament to the genius of Skyler Carr, Casey Voeks, and everyone involved in the imagineering of their missions.  The reason for my praise is something that happened last Friday.  Let me tell an abbreviated version of the story. 

     Due to an error on my part, I left two of our Young Astronaut squadrons short their third mission / class rotation.  I occasionally make scheduling mistakes when mapping out dates and times to get all our 23 Young Astronaut and Voyager Club squadrons fitted out with their 8 meetings for the school year.  And because of one of those errors, I needed to have one team do a flight session and another team do a class session on the same day.  That's a no-no, due to the fact that I can't be in two different places at the same time. My solution was something we'd never tried before.  

     I scheduled the two squadrons for last Friday.  The 5th grade flight team and the 4th grade class / flight team met in my room at 12:45 P.M. I got the 5th grade team ready to start their mission and turned them over to Bracken.  The 4th graders had their meeting extended to 3 hours instead of two.  Their first two hours would be spent with me in the classroom while the 5th grade team flew their mission.  They'd enter the Voyager for their 1 hour mission when the 5th graders went home. I needed to come up with an extra hour of curriculum.  My solution was to have them do an InfiniD mission for the first hour before teaching them my prepared hour long astronomy lesson reserved for their 4th round.  

     I've never seen or supervised an InfiniD mission.  I've seen bits and pieces here and there but never sat in on a whole flight.  My sixth grade teaching partner does InfiniD as part of our science curriculum.  Friday was my first InfiniD rodeo.  I brought in the light cart, pulled up my preassigned mission, had the kids log in, pulled the window blinds, shut off the classroom lights and started the mission.  What I saw amazed me.  

     My 4th Grade Tiger Squadron was into the flight from the start.  I thought they'd be a hard sell considering they fly in the Voyager on a regular basis, but I was dead wrong.  They were 100% immersed in the mission to Mars.  I didn't have a thing to do but watch and be amazed at the amount of learning taking place. 

     What impressed me the most was the cooperation and communication the mission brought out in the cadets.  There were some heavy debates on action items and a few mission failures along the way.  In fact, that InfiniD mission had my cadets just as involved in this mission as they would be on the bridge of the Voyager.  In fact, they were so immersed and involved I'm beginning to consider implementing aspects of an InfiniD mission into the way we run missions in our brick and mortar ship.  It was amazing! 

     I'm gong to implement InfiniD missions into our Young Astronaut  and Voyager clubs for the cadet's 6th classroom round coming up in a month.  The program will from now one be an integral part of our club.  I just need to coordinate with our cadet's classroom teachers so we're not doing duplicate missions.

     InfiniD team, you've taken my dream of a classroom simulator from the early 1980's and made it real. You've found a way to take the mission magic worldwide.  My hat is off to what you've accomplished and I'm proud to be the voice of your computer.  

Victor 

    

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The Cyber Legionnaires (Computer Programming Class) Resumes Regular Classes at The Space Place. The Voyager Club's Cup Stacking Challenge. InfiniD Makes an Impression at Conference. Jon Parker's 18th Anniversary. Imaginarium Theater

      

Drew helping a Cyber Legionnaire with a question

     What makes foreign governments question their future security? What keeps the Kremlin's spymasters up at night? Why is China spending billions on new network firewalls? These governments, all guilty of meddling in American's cyber security, fear a small group of young, up and coming future programmers.They fear The Space Place at Renaissance Academy's Cyber Legionnaires.  
     Nestled snugly just to the west of Utah's Silicon Slopes sits Renaissance Academy. Renaissance is a public charter school that specializes in foreign languages and experiential education using the USS Voyager, the school's starship simulator.  The Space Place offered the coding class for two years before Covid shut us down in 2019.  Now we are back with the first class held last Saturday for students in grades 5 - 7.  

     These 28 Cyber Legionnaires meet in my classroom most Saturday mornings from 8:30 - 9:30 A.M.  I supervise the Legionaries but the heavy lifting code coaching comes from my two gurus (the Google name for Google CS teaching assistants), Ammon and Drew.  Together the three of us put the students through their paces as outlined in the Google CSFirst curriculum.  Our young programming novices are learning SCRATCH. They're quick learners.

Ammon helping a young Legionnaire

     The students are enthusiastic to learn as proven by their willingness to return to school at 8:30 A.M. on a Saturday morning for a 60 minute class.  As the name of our group illustrates, our students know that the future depends on a computer literate population. Computer literacy should begin at an early age with age appropriate material.  Google has generously supplied the curriculum. It is now up to schools to make these lessons available to students nationwide.

This year's first class of Cyber Legionnaires at The Space Place

     

From this class of Cyber Legionnaires will come tomorrow's programmers tasked with America's safety along with the development of applications, processes, and equipment to improve our quality of life. Our ultimate goal is to provide America's companies with an ample pool of qualified employees ready to tackle the programming needs of the future. The time to prepare for that future is now.  

Mr. Williamson  

The Voyager Club at Renaissance Academy's The Space Place: Using Space Exploration and Science Fiction to Teach Teamwork, Communication, and Problem Solving Skills   

Three 6th Grade Voyager Cadets Working to Set a New Record in Cup Stacking

     We sure have fun while learning at The Space Place, Renaissance Academy's space center.  The school has 225 Young Astronauts (grades 3-5) and the Voyagers (grades 6-9) enrolled in the after school program. The cadets meet once per month to learn about space exploration, bond as a team with team building activities, and explore the vastness of space in our very own Starships, the Voyager and Nighthawk.    

     The cadets are involved in a cup stacking competition this month.

The 6th Grade Cobra Squadron Trying to Set a New Time Record

InfiniD Makes an Impression at the Future of Education Technology Conference in New Orleans

We were invited to showcase our technology (Infini-D Learning) in a pitch competition at the Future of Education Technology Conference (#FETC) in New Orleans.

Guess what.

We won!

Skyler Carr posted the photo and caption above on his Facebook page. I don't know much about the FETC, but based on its name, there would be no better fit than InfinD and the experiential learning practiced everyday in our Utah County space centers.

Congratuations to Skyler Carr, Brooks Heder, and the InfiniD family!

Space Center Legend Jon Parker Celebrates his 18th Anniversary at the Christa McAuliffe Space Center

A Younger Jon Parker (With a Reasonable Haircut) at the Controls

That's right space fans, our good friend and confidant, Jon Parker celebrated his 18th anniversary on Saturday. It was 18 years ago Jon arrived on our doorstep; a young new volunteer assigned, by mistake, to work an overnight camp. Not having a clue what to do, he somehow survived the ordeal and 18 years later is the CMSC's Assistant Director and good friend to all. Congratulations Jon!

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