It feels a bit strange to think that I am actually in South Africa. The journey here has not always been smooth and there were a few minor bumps along the way. It seems like a good idea to write a post briefly describing how I came upon this opportunity so that I may properly thank those who made all this possible.
The planning season began on September 9, 2010 when our program had an interest meeting for everyone potentially going on an International Summer of Service in 2011. During the meeting, the Assistant Director of our program, Minda Brooks, explained the project proposal process and gave us advice on getting started.
I found the first step of deciding on a project to be quite difficult. To make a long story short, I thought about a variety of ways to choose a project and discussed them with Minda, my dad, and my fellow Duke students. Through this process, I eventually came to the idea of training students in preparation for a robotics competition.
When I mentioned this to Minda, she directed me to Hannah Hellebush, who is also in our program. Hannah had worked with the South African Education and Environment Project (SAEP) and found it to be a wonderful opportunity to serve and teach. In particular, she had worked with SAEP's Hope Scholars Program, an after school program in several of Cape Town's township schools.
I met with Hannah to ask about her experience with the Hope Scholars and to get her feedback on some of my thoughts and hopes for the summer. It was wonderful to hear about the work she had done and how it had impacted not only the students, but also her. She thought the robotics project might be possible and got me in touch with Norton Tennille, founder of SAEP.
I sent Mr. Tennille a short e-mail about who I was, asking for a chance to discuss the possibility of working with them. I was contacted by Sara Muhl, who was fielding volunteer queries and we began our discussions! It was now the start of December. Over the next several months we e-mailed back and forth discussing what kind of placement was possible and what resources were available for the robotics course. It seemed like everything was lining up, but unfortunately in mid-March I found out we would not be able to fit the robotics course into their program.
Though the placement did not work out in the end, I learned quite a bit during those months. For example, I learned how to communicate professionally with people who were 6 hours apart from me! I also wrote a proposal for them and through that I was forced to turn vague hopes and ideas into specific plans. In fact, the current course owes a great deal to those discussions and plans.
At this point I was not sure whether I would still be able to serve abroad in 2011. Summer vacation was coming up quickly, making the possibility of such a long trip increasingly unlikely. I decided to search for a placement through several avenues.
At my home church, The Summit, the College Coordinator, Jon Chleboun, had put me in touch with Brad Brown. Brad helps college students, like me, find opportunities to go on mission trips around the world. We had been discussing my summer plans and so I asked him to help me look for some new opportunities. With the help of Matt Clark at the Summit we got in touch with Paul King at Pioneers. Mr. King gave some great suggestions and offered to take the project proposal to a conference with him.
At the same time, I sent the proposal to some family friends who live in Poland to check for any opportunities there. I also met with Dean Linda Franzoni in the Pratt School of Engineering to ask for any ideas and to get some feedback on the current proposal. She directed me to Dr. Gary Ybarra, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). It was wonderful to have the opportunity to show Dr. Ybarra the proposal and receive feedback and suggestions. One of Dr. Ybarra's research interests is actually in education. He provided me with lots of references and resources to check up on and to guide the development of the course. He also graciously wrote a faculty letter of support.
Minda had also asked some of her contacts at Projects Abroad about the robotics project. They directed us to Christian Clark, and at the end of March I sent him my CV and robotics course proposal. Over the course of a few weeks, we began to figure out more of the specifics of the project and found a school interested in taking on the project, Hyde Park Primary. At this point, I was contacted by Alyssa Myers, the Program Advisor for Projects Abroad's South Africa office. We spent another week determining and confirming the details of the project to make sure my time here in Cape Town would be spent effectively. On April 21, 2011 I committed to taking the robotics course to Hyde Park Primary!
Now the paperwork had to be finished up, from filling out Projects Abroad's application to booking tickets to registering the trip with Duke University. I often asked questions to David Oberst, who also used Projects Abroad for an International Summer of Service in Cape Town. He was always ready to answer questions and provide sound advice for the summer. While taking care of these logistical parts of the trip, I also informed everyone involved that a place for the project had been found. It was wonderful to receive their support as preparations were being completed.
Interestingly enough, when I went to the travel clinic to receive all the required vaccinations, the clinic nurse asked what I was going to do in Cape Town. When she heard about the robotics project, she said she knew another person at Duke who used robotics as a teaching tool. How cool is that? She shot him an e-mail and Julian "Mac" Mason, a doctoral candidate in the Computer Science department, sent an e-mail asking for more information. We've been in touch and he has provided some great input from his experience teaching computer science with robotics.
Anyway, now came the time to really flush out the course details, including the specific platform used and the actual lesson plans. At this point, my dad brought up the idea of using Lego Robotics. All the plans to this point had been designed with a platform similar to the BOE-Bot in mind. However, after struggling with the decision, I came to the conclusion that Lego Robotics would be best because it would:
So the old curriculum needed to undergo major revisions to utilize the new kit! During the last two weeks leading up to my departure, parts were ordered and express shipped to my home, and I began building designs and developing new lessons. A few days before I left, I was able to try out a lesson with some students from around my home. The lessons learned through the experience helped determine the current class structure.
Anyway, the day for my departure finally came. I packed during the morning and hurried over to the airport and got on a plane. Nearly 24 hours later I stepped off another plane into my first week here in Cape Town!
The story of how I came upon this opportunity shows that I have a lot of people to be thankful for. I would like to publicly and sincerely thank:
The planning season began on September 9, 2010 when our program had an interest meeting for everyone potentially going on an International Summer of Service in 2011. During the meeting, the Assistant Director of our program, Minda Brooks, explained the project proposal process and gave us advice on getting started.
I found the first step of deciding on a project to be quite difficult. To make a long story short, I thought about a variety of ways to choose a project and discussed them with Minda, my dad, and my fellow Duke students. Through this process, I eventually came to the idea of training students in preparation for a robotics competition.
When I mentioned this to Minda, she directed me to Hannah Hellebush, who is also in our program. Hannah had worked with the South African Education and Environment Project (SAEP) and found it to be a wonderful opportunity to serve and teach. In particular, she had worked with SAEP's Hope Scholars Program, an after school program in several of Cape Town's township schools.
I met with Hannah to ask about her experience with the Hope Scholars and to get her feedback on some of my thoughts and hopes for the summer. It was wonderful to hear about the work she had done and how it had impacted not only the students, but also her. She thought the robotics project might be possible and got me in touch with Norton Tennille, founder of SAEP.
I sent Mr. Tennille a short e-mail about who I was, asking for a chance to discuss the possibility of working with them. I was contacted by Sara Muhl, who was fielding volunteer queries and we began our discussions! It was now the start of December. Over the next several months we e-mailed back and forth discussing what kind of placement was possible and what resources were available for the robotics course. It seemed like everything was lining up, but unfortunately in mid-March I found out we would not be able to fit the robotics course into their program.
Though the placement did not work out in the end, I learned quite a bit during those months. For example, I learned how to communicate professionally with people who were 6 hours apart from me! I also wrote a proposal for them and through that I was forced to turn vague hopes and ideas into specific plans. In fact, the current course owes a great deal to those discussions and plans.
At this point I was not sure whether I would still be able to serve abroad in 2011. Summer vacation was coming up quickly, making the possibility of such a long trip increasingly unlikely. I decided to search for a placement through several avenues.
At my home church, The Summit, the College Coordinator, Jon Chleboun, had put me in touch with Brad Brown. Brad helps college students, like me, find opportunities to go on mission trips around the world. We had been discussing my summer plans and so I asked him to help me look for some new opportunities. With the help of Matt Clark at the Summit we got in touch with Paul King at Pioneers. Mr. King gave some great suggestions and offered to take the project proposal to a conference with him.
At the same time, I sent the proposal to some family friends who live in Poland to check for any opportunities there. I also met with Dean Linda Franzoni in the Pratt School of Engineering to ask for any ideas and to get some feedback on the current proposal. She directed me to Dr. Gary Ybarra, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). It was wonderful to have the opportunity to show Dr. Ybarra the proposal and receive feedback and suggestions. One of Dr. Ybarra's research interests is actually in education. He provided me with lots of references and resources to check up on and to guide the development of the course. He also graciously wrote a faculty letter of support.
Minda had also asked some of her contacts at Projects Abroad about the robotics project. They directed us to Christian Clark, and at the end of March I sent him my CV and robotics course proposal. Over the course of a few weeks, we began to figure out more of the specifics of the project and found a school interested in taking on the project, Hyde Park Primary. At this point, I was contacted by Alyssa Myers, the Program Advisor for Projects Abroad's South Africa office. We spent another week determining and confirming the details of the project to make sure my time here in Cape Town would be spent effectively. On April 21, 2011 I committed to taking the robotics course to Hyde Park Primary!
Now the paperwork had to be finished up, from filling out Projects Abroad's application to booking tickets to registering the trip with Duke University. I often asked questions to David Oberst, who also used Projects Abroad for an International Summer of Service in Cape Town. He was always ready to answer questions and provide sound advice for the summer. While taking care of these logistical parts of the trip, I also informed everyone involved that a place for the project had been found. It was wonderful to receive their support as preparations were being completed.
Interestingly enough, when I went to the travel clinic to receive all the required vaccinations, the clinic nurse asked what I was going to do in Cape Town. When she heard about the robotics project, she said she knew another person at Duke who used robotics as a teaching tool. How cool is that? She shot him an e-mail and Julian "Mac" Mason, a doctoral candidate in the Computer Science department, sent an e-mail asking for more information. We've been in touch and he has provided some great input from his experience teaching computer science with robotics.
Anyway, now came the time to really flush out the course details, including the specific platform used and the actual lesson plans. At this point, my dad brought up the idea of using Lego Robotics. All the plans to this point had been designed with a platform similar to the BOE-Bot in mind. However, after struggling with the decision, I came to the conclusion that Lego Robotics would be best because it would:
- enable the students to make something "cool" without as much "technical" training
(they wouldn't need to learn about PWM, for example). - make it easier for the students to build interesting mechanical designs without power tools.
So the old curriculum needed to undergo major revisions to utilize the new kit! During the last two weeks leading up to my departure, parts were ordered and express shipped to my home, and I began building designs and developing new lessons. A few days before I left, I was able to try out a lesson with some students from around my home. The lessons learned through the experience helped determine the current class structure.
Anyway, the day for my departure finally came. I packed during the morning and hurried over to the airport and got on a plane. Nearly 24 hours later I stepped off another plane into my first week here in Cape Town!
The story of how I came upon this opportunity shows that I have a lot of people to be thankful for. I would like to publicly and sincerely thank:
- the students in the United States who participated in a test class that taught me several lessons about teaching.
- my fellow Duke students, for all their input and interest in this robotics project.
- Hannah Hellebush, for introducing me to SAEP and sharing her experiences and advice with me.
- David Oberst, for answering many questions leading up to the trip and sharing his Projects Abroad experience with me.
- Jon and Brad at The Summit, for meeting with me on several occasions to chat about how I might use this summer well.
- Mr. King, who provided great input and even took the proposal with him to an international conference. (In fact he found some folks who may want to have this course in the future!)
- Mac Mason, for his ideas and input into the course material.
- Dean Franzoni and Dr. Ybarra, for all their ideas, wisdom, and support as I prepared for this trip.
- SAEP, for working with me to formulate many of the specifics of this project.
- Projects Abroad, for partnering me in this project and providing me with accommodations here on the ground.
- Hyde Park Primary, for working with me to make this course a reality!
- The Benjamin N. Duke Scholarship Program, for sponsoring this International Summer of Service.
- Ms. Minda Brooks, who was involved in the whole process from start to finish and provided me with wonderful guidance and support.
crazy journey, senior brother! sometimes it seems like opportunities like this are just as much about serendipity as about skill. lucky you that you have both!
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