Outreach

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Outreach

Part of the broader vision of ANRG is to help create a better educated society. We aim to mentor and extend the power of knowledge to a diverse set of students at K-12 schools as well at teaching-oriented undergraduate institutions, to enable them to discover and explore the rewarding world of engineering and research, and expand their horizons in terms of further education and career opportunities in science and technology.

We collaborate with a number of partner organizations and institutions in these efforts:

• One of these is a nonprofit organization called Iridescent that works on science and engineering education at schools in Los Angeles. Their philosophy is summarized in the following quote which is deeply consonant with our view as well: "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea." - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

• We also work with USC's MESA program, which helps educationally disadvantaged students prepare for math, engineering and science programs at the college level.

• We have recently initiated a collaboration with the computer science and engineering department at Johnson C. Smith University, a historically African-American university in Charlotte, North Carolina, to bring research experiences into the undergraduate curriculum there with the aim of inspiring more under-represented students to consider pursuing graduate degrees in engineering.

This page contains stories, experiences, and personal accounts of several school and college outreach activities that we have been involved with. The following activities are listed in reverse chronological order with some pictures and links.

Engineering KidZ Design Challenge

Designing and building toys is always fun. On March 24, 2010, we took part in the Engineering KidZ Design Challenge event organized by Iridescent and helped about sixty 5th graders from the inner-city schools of Los Angeles to build catapults using popsicle sticks, tape, rubber bands, etc. The event took place in the Engineering Quad from 10 am to 1 pm. The students were divided into twenty teams, with three in each, and each team was also assigned a mentor who could help the kids.

A sample set of instructions to build a catapult was given to everyone; however, we motivated the students to explore new design options. We found out that the kids were very imaginative in modifying existing designs as well as making completely new ones, as shown in the photographs here. Once the catapults were made, we used them to launch ping pong balls to see how far the balls could fly. There were prizes for the top four teams, and t-shirts for everyone. The event was sponsored by Time Warner Cable.

We thoroughly enjoyed the events as much as the kids did and look forward to do similar events in the future.

Bell Gardens High School: "Ask-a-Scientist" Night

We took part in an event called "Ask-a-Scientist Night" hosted by the Science Department at the Bell Gardens High School located in the East of Los Angeles on January 20, 2010. Every year the Science department organizes this event to promote interaction between the students of Bell Gardens and the faculty and engineers from local universities in LA. The students get a chance to talk to the engineers about their research, why they chose their respective fields, and what the engineers could do to facilitate learning among the students.

This year, two students (Amitabha and Mahesh) from ANRG, participated in the event, where we presented a poster on "Wireless Sensor Networks", and talked about interesting real-life applications of sensor networks. We also answered many questions, ranging from "how does electricity work", "how did you know you wanted to be a scientist" to questions like "how does an antenna work", "what happens when two motes transmit in the same frequency", etc., with most of the questions put forth with genuine curiosity by the students. We also carried with us several motes (Mica and Sun SPOTs) and demonstrated a couple of simple applications.

Each one of the students also had a printed sheet of paper, carrying which they went to every table, asked a question, and wrote down the answer after we explained, and then had us sign the sheet. Some of the students were not even science majors, and they were at the crossroads of deciding whether to pursue engineering or other fields, and they told us they felt excited about engineering after talking to us. It was a very fulfilling experience. We hope to take part in such school activities more in near future.

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University of Southern California - Viterbi School of Engineering - Electrical Engineering Department - Computer Science Department