Written by La’Shay White

Day three is finally here and the students of MINDDRIVE are slowly dragging their feet across the carpet of the hotel because they are so tired. I sat there in a daze trying to completely wake up. I could barely hear the voices of the people around me as they tried to start a conversation. I got up to get coffee, as usual, so that I could be attentive for the day. We got our daily assignments and left the hotel.

We drove about an hour to the Carnegie Science Center. When the Science Center opened we explored and learned new things. The submarine  was an unforgettable experience! I had the chance to walk through and briefly live the life of the sailor. The view from the water was so beautiful, I began taking picture after picture. I love how the houses are built on the hillside and I loved the bridge that sat directly in the middle of it all.

We departed from the Science Center and made our way to the original hotdog place – famous for Pittsburg. I did not enjoy it, however others said that it was great! Carnegie Mellon University was our next stop. While there, we had the chance to go through their Solar, Zero-Emissions House Project and the Intelligent Work Place Project. It was so unique because it was built by very motivated and intelligent students. The beauty of one small idea becoming something huge touched me in a way.

We left the University and went to a restaurant called The Porch. This was sort of an Italian restaurant and I did not know what I was getting myself into, but I will try anything once. Later we went to the Electric Garage on the Carnegie Mellon campus to present our car to some people that were interested. It was a long day that ended with a bang. A couple of mentors and students stayed behind for about 6 hours to fix our Karmann Ghia, replacing the motor. It was one of the greatest moments of the day, it showed me that teamwork and determination will get all of us a long way in life.

The airplane rides are over, thank goodness. We made it through yesterday and most, if not all of us are anticipating the upcoming of today. My day started off kind of slow after waking up at 5:30 in the morning. I slowly worked my way down to breakfast with my, oh, so heavy luggage. I could smell the aroma of sweet rolls, coffee, and eggs. I don’t know how I could depict the smell of three items among all of the smells that were lurking in the hotel. As I walked in the eating area, I stopped to look at the smiles and tired facial expressions on each persons face. I would say by the looks of it that everyone was not a morning person. However, that is beside the point. I decided to disregard the food and go straight for the coffee. As I blankly stood there, I took one deep breath, smiled, and grabbed me a cup and began to make my coffee. I took my seat, slowly sipped the scorching hot coffee, and talked to a couple of my peers.

After 10 minutes I was like an energizer bunny, pumped and ready to go. We all got our assignments and we were on our way. Our first stop was Bridgestone in Akron, Ohio. The building was so beautiful, with the clean shiny windows and the statue of Harvey Firestone (founder) which was uniquely different, but I liked it. We went on a tour of the Bridgestone facility, ate a snack and watched a video about last years trip. We also took the time to thank Bridgestone for everything that they have done. I took a few pictures as we waited for the sheriff to come and escort us out of Akron. One of the MINDDRIVE students, Kristana Madison, drove our electric Karmann Ghia to Youngstown, Ohio with Steve alongside. Once we reached Youngstown we went to a place called “Oh Wow” Science Center. It was a large version of kaleidoscope in Kansas City. I felt it was a good experience because it showed us how to have fun again, how to be ourselves. Later, we spoke with students from a local high school and ate delicious sandwiches.

After that, we made our way to Youngstown State University (YSU) to talk about our car to a few intelligent people. The people all seemed really interested in what we had to say. I began to smile as I saw the amusing looks on all of their faces. Who knew that a few students and mentors could completely take apart a car and make it totally electric, then drive it across the country? On our way to our new hotel in Pennsylvania, another one of the MINDDRIVE students, Cornel Foster, drove the Karmann Ghia, as the caravan followed behind. Sadly, we encountered a problem with the car. Yes, we were shocked at what was going on, but everyone knows that the MINDDRIVE team never gives up. When we have a goal to reach, despite the problems we encounter, we will reach it. We are not only a team, but we are a family, we all stick together in time of need and that’s what I love about MINDDRIVE. We put the car on the trailer and kept on trucking. After the sonic, of course and a long ride, we finally made it to our hotel. That was a really long day but I have to say that it was a great.

By Sandra Perez

It’s day one and it’s almost time to go on the long journey that’s ahead of us. Getting on the plane for the first time was a great experience, being up so close with the clouds was fascinating. As the plane got ready to take off, I started to get butterflies in my stomach, realizing I was finally going to be on top of the world. As we finally reached the top,  I saw how beautiful everything truly was, the fear I had about flying seemed to fade away as we reached the top. The time seemed to fly as I was mesmerized by the beautiful clouds, we finally reached to our destination and it was time to land in Chicago.

We stayed there for about an hour and a half admiring the great city of Chicago from a far in the airport. We learned a lot of things about Chicago in that hour and a half, I learned that “its considered bad manners and harmful to your taste buds to put ketchup on your hot dog within the city limits of Chicago”. That was a fascinating fact about Chicago, and it made me learn a little more about the background of Chicago and the great pride they have for their hot dogs.

After what seemed like a short wait it was time to get back on top of the world and go to Akron, Ohio.  We got ready to take off and like the first time I got those butterflies I had in the beginning if our journey. We finally landed in Akron around 1:45 pm, it was a small little town but it was really pretty. There were trees everywhere, something we don’t see much in Kansas City. We arrived at Sonic, one of our many awesome sponsors, and helped ourselves to the great food of Sonic. Sadly for me, I had already ate before and I didn’t have much chance to try Sonic’s food, but I did get my favorite drink, a strawberry limeade.  Around 6:30 a.m we arrived at our hotel, the Holiday Inn. We freshened up and prepared ourselves for a speech by one of our close friends Casey Carter. He gave a great inspirational speech about going after what we want in life and how we should never compromise on the things we are passionate about. He also told us that we should always expect great things  for us, he also gave us a small glimpse into his music career. He sang for us four great inspirational songs, I truly believe everyone from MINDDRIVE received a great message from his speech. Me, personally I learned that you can achieve more than one dream. You don’t have to be stuck to one career; you can do more than one thing because we should never give up on our passions in life. After Casey’s speech we headed to AppleBee’s to have a tastey dinner. We had a great time being together eating like the family we are, getting to know each other even more and having one of the greatest night of our lives. It was the greatest way to end day one.

This car was finished to a fine degree so that it could be used to strike molds that will be used for the subsequent MINDDRIVE electric Karmann Ghia ultra-efficient prototype vehicle.

The students will then continue on to convert this car to an electric driveline. Their concept is to create a “kit car” that would be primarily an urban use car, traveling relatively low speeds for short distances.  The perfect neighborhood car!

The car is shod with Bridgestone low rolling resistance, Ecopia tires.  It will be featured at the Kansas City Auto Show from March 6th – 10th at Bartle Hall.

Mentor Catherine Futter and Alta Vista High School student, Huyi Rodriguez are building a model interior of the framework for the Karmann Ghia project.  Catherine has been working with a team of students including Daniel Hungerford of Shawnee Mission East, Christiane Parker of University Academy along with Huyi in an exhaustive exercise of measuring, cutting, forming and fitting.

This task is important for the construction of the mold for the newly designed Karmann Ghia.  They are using the dimensions, carefully measuring every line, curve and angle of the current “mule” car, creating what would have been the interior of it exactly, so that when the exterior mold is constructed there will still be room for everything needed in the two-passenger car.

Kennedy Mitchelle took the Canon Rebel into the shop for the first time with the assignment of documenting the process happening on the Karmann Ghia project.  There are several Automotive Design Studio students working on various aspects of this project, mostly deconstruction of  the car, and some are reconstructing the dimensions of the interior out of foam core and building a shape from which they can design a mold for the bent plywood floor panel.

She found art in the rust, the discarded, ignored car, which will be resurrected, fully altered, fully electric and beautifully designed.  So, enjoy the “beauty” in the ugliness of the “BEFORE” photos of the Karmann Ghia Project.

Corey Boston is working on the Reynard team this week with mentors, Sam Scupham, Andy Ratkewicz, and Buck Buchner.  They have a couple of projects within this project, one of which is to drill holes into the aluminum plate which will cover and protect the controller.  The other is creating a metal base cage that will hold the batteries.

Corey is all about safety.  He’s a freshman at DeLaSalle Charter School and wants to be a lawyer.  He commented the other day that most people would think it wouldn’t make much sense for him to work on building electric cars if he wants to be a lawyer.  ”But,what MINDDRIVE is about is problem solving and learning to work with others,” says Corey. “It’s not just about cars, it’s about working with people.”

Yep, that part is true.  Come on down to MINDDRIVE some Saturday morning (we’re there from 9:00 until 1:00 each week) and you will see at least 4 different teams working on various aspects of the Automotive Design class car projects.  And from the Communications class and the Business development class, you’ll see teamwork in researching the cars, the target market for the Karmann Ghia project, taking photos, writing stories, etc.  We have a great time.

Oh, and Corey is definitely going to be a lawyer.  He’s very convincing.

This week we are featuring our student, La’Shay White’s poem, entitled Bittersweet, Oh Bittersweet.  The prompt this week was a story about the Innocence Project, a non-profit organization of lawyers committing their time and effort to free those wrongly convicted of crimes, who have served sentences long and difficult, and the story of a man who was released after 30 years in prison.  He described the day of his release as “Bittersweet”.

Here is what La’Shay wrote that day:

Bittersweet, Oh, Bittersweet

Written by La’Shay White

It was an exciting day when the Karmann Ghia “mule” was taken apart.  The plan is to use this frame, redesigned with aerodynamic qualities and restyled with beautiful attributes, as a mold that can be replicated.  The newly designed body will consist in part of formed, bent plywood and part fiberglass or carbon fiber. Both offer lightweight and sustainable materials and give us a great start at creating a lightweight, efficient vehicle.

The students and mentors worked together to disassemble the body from the frame and this photo illustrates how at MINDDRIVE, everyone has to pull their own weight!  lol. Seriously though, our model is to team mentors from various professional fields with students, one-on-one whenever possible.  Teamwork is important as there are often several projects happening simultaneously during the course of our 4 hours together, every Saturday from 9:00 to 1:00.

The Automotive Design Studio got moved to the back shop area to accommodate the expansion of our number of students and mentors.  This will allow everyone to be together for the classroom time, and then the teams will be split up as to which car project they will focus on each week.  Mentors lead projects with approx. 4 students on each project.

We’ve also added a Business Strategy component to the Automotive Design Studio.  They will be researching the costs associated with converting an old Karmann Ghia into a modern electric vehicle, designed for urban use.  Their study will include feasibility, defining the market, competitive pricing, parts research and much more!

Here is a great shot of our “Wall of Safety” which features (continues to grow) our students, our mentors, and our esteemed frequent guests!  Come on down, we’ve got a pair of safety goggles for you and you can join in the fun!

Contemporary Communications Class has also been updated!  We’ve taken over what was the Automotive Design Studio last year and have grown to 10 students.  Each student will be assigned their own computer for the year, create their own blog, learn to write well, photograph and document projects through the use of video production, as well as utilizing social media for reporting on MINDDRIVE activities.