What True Leadership Contains

Leadership is important for every organization, but what's the make-up of true leadership. C. Knutson explains: http://ow.ly/njgFy

CHS Instructor participates in NI Week activities

Every year, National Instruments holds an event named NI Week.  The week features companies and colleges from all over the world coming to Austin, TX to collaborate and learn more about National Instruments and LabVIEW. 

NIWeek delivers technical networking and instruction with interactive sessions by NI R&D engineers and guest lecturers; targeted industry summits; hands-on workshops; exhibitions on the latest advancements in design, research, and test; and keynote presentations from leading technology thought leaders. Past presenters include Dr. Neil Gershenfeld of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, Dr. Michio Kaku of City College of New York, and the late Tim Samaras of Discovery Channel’s Storm Chasers. Attendees include engineers, scientists, and executives from organizations such as Boeing, CERN, John Deere, ST-Ericsson, and UC Berkeley.

National Instruments recently created a program called the “NI Elite Educator.”  Mike Yakubovsky was selected to be included in the program this past spring.  The Elite Educator program allows CHS and the STEM Academy to be recognized within an industry leader.  We will be able to collaborate with other schools and universities to expand the opportunities of our learners as well as get to test out new products from NI.

At NI Week, Mike will be giving a presentation highlighting some of the amazing work our learners are doing at CHS as well as how they are using LabVIEW and NI hardware.  Additionally, there will be professional development and networking opportunities.  NI is also offering the chance for the Elite Educators to beta test a new product being introduced this year.

UTD Solar Car Camp Rebuilds Aurora

UT Dallas just finished up a solar car camp that featured Coppell Solar’s Aurora solar car.  Campers were middle and high school students from around the state.  Over 3 ½ weeks, the campers learned about solar cars, rewired Aurora, installed a new motor, panels, controller, power tracker, computer management, and cut 40 pounds out of the car.  At the end of the camp, they drove the car on a 100-mile cross-country route that went from Terrell to Mineola and back.

Some challenges with the authorities in Terrell caused a delay and restart in Will Point.  An unforcasted rain storm stopped the drive short, but the car did cover Van Zandt County on highway 80.

I am very proud of the accomplishments of our past team members on their design and construction of Aurora.  It has held up over 4 years and been through a lot of work and is still going strong.  I want to give extra praise to past team members Rishi Samani and Saagar Patel.  In 3 ½ weeks, they got all of the students and other counselors up and running on solar cars, welding, brakes, etc so that the car was able to get on the road.