Greenspeed Research

The Solar Go-Kart Challenge provided high-school students with a hands on STEM learning opportunity. Students were provided gasoline powered go-kart kits and the parts necessary to convert them to 100% solar power. Students worked on teams, learning new skills along with how to transfer their existing classroom knowledge to a real life project. The culmination of this project was a competition on the Boise State University campus. Half of the competition was students giving a design presentation to a panel of judges, consisting of STEM professionals (practicing engineers and professors). In this presentation, the students explained what new skills they learned (teamwork, critical thinking, how to fail, how to recover from failing, etc)

GsR provides learning opportunities for people of all ages by building and showing renewable energy powered vehicles. GsR puts these technology demonstrators in front of a large audience for the opportunity to see how powerful and viable renewable energy really is, and force public discussion of the possibilities. These exciting technology demonstrators are not only 'vehicles' to showcase renewable energy but also serve as the canvas for engaging young people in STEM. These vehicles are designed and built from the ground up STEM and 21st century learning opportunities lie within every corner of the vehicle and its design. Both simple and complex solutions are an integral part of making one of these vehicles, and they provide students hands on experience in connecting classroom learning to real world projects. Those involved are so much more prepared for the future with practical experience under their belt before they even graduate high-school.

In it's first year and a half, GsR has had 6 interns engaging at the shop. These interns focused on many different aspects of our organization. Some worked on designing a system to grow algae-based bio-fuel, some directed their time towards, equipment and methods for data acquisition on the land speed truck, and others helped with details of the Solar Go-Kart Challenge. All of these activities required taking on a large goal, breaking down objectives and tasks, and completing those tasks over a longer time period than can be experience in a typical classroom setting. Opportunities like this remove the formulaic small book problem and present a real world project based experience that takes not hours but months to complete. Interns experiences are taken through the entire process, not a small portion of a project so they can get a better understanding of completing a large project just like they will be doing working for an engineering firm or other STEM career.