4..3...2...1...Blast Off

One of the biggest perks of this session is that I haven’t had to do any prep work for the class I help with, which is a well-timed change for me since lately I’ve been having to travel a lot for my job. Of course the downside of my new schedule is that the session seems to flying by. I’m amazed at how quickly our Mars Mission has progressed. Today was the start of the last full week of the session, and next Monday I’ll be out of town on a business trip, so yesterday was my last day of Operation SMART!

That’s not to say the girls haven’t made the most of this experience though. Every day that I’ve been here there has been another inspiring woman presenting her story and getting the girls excited about space exploration. Last Monday I was so enthused watching some of the girls stay after Bonnie Ngyugen’s presentation to practice naming parts of the model Atlas rocket she brought in, and yesterday I was pumped to see the Chief Technology Officer of Lockheed, a fellow chemical engineer, talk about how important technology is to her job and to everyone’s lives.

Class has been great too; the girls are really working their critical thinking muscles by deciding on a landing site for the Mars spaceship and brainstorming the details of the mission. The Lockheed volunteer, Andrew, is doing a fantastic job leading the girls through the design process and making sure they work as a team. It looks like they’ll be finishing their mission in the next few days, and I’m really sad I’m missing the big finale!

On another note, although I’ll be absent for the last day of Lockheed’s programming, I’m going to do my best to make it on the 12th for the farewell party for some of our youth instructors, especially Danielle, who is going to nursing school full-time starting this January. Working with the instructors is one of the most fun and rewarding parts of volunteering at Girls Inc. and I will absolutely be sad to see her go. I still remember our coffee shop meeting in the Highlands when we first started brainstorming for our Operation SMART class last year! However, with every ending is a new beginning, and while Danielle is embarking on her new career I’ll also be starting next session by assisting a new instructor. I’m sure it will be great, but I definitely hope I get to wish Danielle well before she takes off for good. We’ll miss you!

Juliet's First Day on the Blog...

I have been looking forward to this session for weeks! Today was the first day of Operation SMART (Science, Math, and Relevant Technology) in the Youth Center, featuring the talented ladies of Lockheed Martin! A group of LM engineers has spent many hours compiling a full curriculum for this session, where the girls will all be working in teams to plan a Mission to Mars. I can’t wait to see how it unfolds. The past few years I’ve done my best to serve as the “resident engineer” during Operation SMART sessions, and had a ton of fun teaching and creating new lessons, but it’s beyond wonderful to have an entire group of people coming in everyday to serve as role models for the girls. The concept is awesome too- each grade level will be working to complete a different part of the project, from habitat to launch vehicle design.

To kick things off, three women from LM introduced themselves to the girls and recounted how they decided to become engineers. It was wonderful to see three different women all speak so passionately about their jobs and how rewarding it’s been to work in the aerospace industry. They were very interactive and fun, and it was great to see the girls asking questions and participating. Near the end of the session an LM volunteer lead the girls through a pretend rocket launch, and by the end of it I was definitely eager to get started on our Mars mission. Last but not least, all the girls got their pictures taken for their authentic Lockheed-Martin badges! I got all nostalgic when I found out they were getting badges, I still have my first badge from my internship with Boeing in college and it was such a big deal.

In the coming weeks, I hope the time our girls get to spend with Lockheed-Martin has the same impact on them that it had on me as a kid. I still remember a field trip I took to the Lockheed Martin facility in Littleton when I was in high school. It was then that I was sure I wanted to be a chemical engineer so I could create a better rocket fuel (I guess I do work with fuel now, just not in quite the same way!). Aerospace was undoubtedly what got me hooked on engineering as a kid, so I’m really looking forward to watching the girls progress through the next few weeks. Mars, here we come!