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MITRE Hosts Scout Engineering Day April 2012
Uniforms at MITRE don't usually raise eyebrows. On a recent weekend, however, the uniforms belonged to Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts participating in MITRE's first Scout Engineering Day. The event provides an opportunity for scouts to earn merit badges in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines. "We have so many technical subject matter experts at MITRE," said John Kressel, a group leader, who helped organize the event. "By bringing together the scouts and our MITRE subject matter experts, we support a great group of kids and fulfill our STEM community outreach goals." More than 220 scouts from the Greater Washington area attended the event—about 190 boys and 30 girls. In addition, about 40 MITRE employees volunteered to support the day's events, either as merit badge counselors, helpers, or escorts. The activities focused on Boy Scout Merit badge requirements in MITRE core strength areas and included sessions in aviation, computers, electricity, electronics, energy, engineering, nuclear science, and robotics. While the Girl Scouts attending were not completing formal Girl Scout requirements, they fulfilled all the tasks needed for the Boy Scout merit badges. "The Girl Scouts currently don't have a formal program for STEM-based activities, but that will be changing soon," said Ruth Dorr, who represented the Girl Scouts on the MITRE Scout Engineering Day team. "I was really pleased that we could offer this program to the Girl Scouts. They got a chance to have a taste of different aspects of engineering in a real-world environment." In the nuclear science merit badge activity with Harry Hogenkamp (former scout, Cub Scout leader, and nuclear submarine officer), participants used plastic cups, aluminum foil, dental floss, and wire to create an electroscope. They also made models of elemental isotopes, showing electrons, protons, neutrons, and up and down quarks. In the aviation group, scouts worked on merit badge requirements to learn how to read an aeronautical map. They also had the opportunity to try out the flight simulator in the MITRE Aviation IDEA lab. During the robotics activity, participants learned how to program and build a robot. "The robotics merit badge was just introduced last year," Kressel said. "We think this might be the first group in the country to earn the robotics merit badge." Lisa Dargis volunteered to be an escort and brought her niece to the event. "I think it's important for kids to be exposed to things like this," she said. "When I was their age, I didn't know this world existed." Bruce Noll, another former Cub Scout leader, helped out during the electronics merit badge activity. "I like the idea of helping the kids," he said. "We might be able to interest a boy or girl in engineering." While numerous MITRE employees supported this event, the core team included Ruth Dorr, Ken Eggers, Mike Ford, James Holdener, Charles Johnstone, John Kressel, Nick Pesce, Steven Walker, and Steve Walsh. "I think it was a great event," Kressel said. "Other MITRE locations—Bedford, Colorado Springs, and San Diego—are watching us to see how this goes. They'd like to plan their own MITRE Scout Engineering Day in the future." Noah, a 17-year-old Boy Scout, agreed. "I hoped it would be a fun experience, and it is," he said. "I wanted to see if it was something I might want to do in my future." —by Nadine Monaco Page last updated: April 25, 2012 | Top of page |
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