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| School: |
Riverdale High School |
| Location: |
Riverdale, Georgia |
| Class/Title: |
Technology Education |
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25 years |
| CO2 Racing: |
25 years |
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"I've been doing what I was meant to do for the last 25 years."
Editor's Note: In a nutshell, that quote is all you need to know about Steve Price, a member of the national TSA Competitive Events Committee since 1991 and the president-elect of the TSA, Inc. Board of Directors. Price is a lifelong Georgia resident. He taught for 18 years at Pointe South Junior High School near Atlanta, and for the past seven years he has taught at Riverdale High School. Read on to learn more about this outstanding educator.
Background
My program at Pointe South was very successful. The TSA chapter members amassed more than 170 state and national trophies over that time. One of the main attractions was the CO2 cars. It was so popular that we had qualifying races to make it to the final 16 in order to decide who would represent the school in state and national competition. As a result the chapter would hold the big race, what we called “The Viking Drags,” in the gym during a sixth period assembly. We charged 50 cents admission, had more than 1,000 attend and made money toward our conference trips.
The competition raised the bar within our own chapter so much that Pointe South won seven state dragster championships and two national dragster championships from 1982–1992. The cars were so popular that the eight junior highs in our school system would have a dragster race hosted by one of the schools each year.
The thing I enjoyed the most about the dragsters was that every year a new student would add something new and innovative that no one had thought of to what the kids before them had discovered. They were dreaming up things that I had never thought of. I learned as much from them as I gave to them.
Innovative Students
The CO2 car was incorporated into a Design, Development, and Innovation modular activity in our middle school programs. Students were able to research, design, and build a CO2 racer while learning about prototypes and their role in product development. My kids even came up with a unique “Windless Wind Tunnel” using our .5 mw laser and some lenses. We didn’t have a real wind tunnel at the middle school, so we found that when using a widened laser beam aimed at the car from the front, the light would be brightest where the most wind resistance would be and black in places where there would be little or no wind resistance. Defects in the surface would be amplified by black shadows behind them, and the car’s profile could be compared to that of a proven fast car.
High School Implementation
Since moving to high school in 1998 we haven’t quite had time for creating cars during the school day. Dragsters and Transportation Modeling are done during after-school TSA workshop time. We have been fortunate to order a new Denford CNC Micromill for our lab. This will give us the capability of cutting three-dimensional shapes designed using software like Inventor. We intend to put it to work developing F1 event entries as well as the TSA Dragsters and Transportation Modeling vehicles.
We’ve had some talented car designers here, like at the middle school. Our best have been “close, but no cigar” at state conference, including Daniel Gaytan, who finished second at state this year. We’ve had better luck at the national TSA race. In 2000 at the TSA Atlanta Conference, Michael Davenport’s Raider Racing car caught Harvey Dean’s eye and was bought by Pitsco. It appears in the current Ideas and Solutions catalog on page 29 as well as the CO2 car poster. One of our girls, Cathy Vithaya, placed in the top 10 in national competition in 2001.
A Passion for CO2 Racing
I became involved with the CO2 races on the national level in 1982 as a race track assistant. I ran the finish line for the CO2 cars back in the day when a car could run off the track and hit the race personnel at the finish line - ouch! In addition, I coordinated the Graphic Design events until I was asked to be a part of the Competitive Events Committee in 1991. Since being assigned as manager for the dragster events, in addition to others, I’ve worked to reduce the number of regulations while keeping the doors open for innovation.
Incredible Designs
There have been some incredible designs and innovations created by the kids over the years: developing their own custom wheels, the first “shell cars,” axle variations, CNC milled bodies, CAD, separate rules for middle and high school, the addition of the mainly design-oriented event called Transportation Modeling, and much more. The cars were getting so fast that they didn’t even need to roll. One of my Pointe South cars ran a time of just over 6/10ths of a second on the full track. I called them “rocket canoes” because it didn’t matter whether they were right side up or upside down at the finish. After much debate, we raised the weight. Everyone was convinced that the cars would be too slow from then on. But, as usual, the car designers have proven us wrong. Within a year the times were back below one second. Every time I think that the weight might just be too much, they find a way, and the cars just get faster.
Transportation Modeling was created as a response to a lot of racers who could care less about winning the race. They were creating cool-looking cars so that Mr. Dean would buy them and put their picture in Pitsco’s catalog. The idea came from a culminating activity that a fellow teacher in my school system was doing in his high school program. He called them “Kirby’s Custom Cruisers.” It involved much more than the car and the drawing, and it was a great high school design activity. Working with the national coordinator, Ron McQueen, I wrote the contest that we call Transportation Modeling.
Dragsters, the TSA Signature Event
I see the dragsters as a TSA signature event as well as a shining example of the creative and talented students we teach. The constant high number of entries on the national level backs my opinion. As the events have evolved, we’ve given some differences for middle school that don’t exist in high school such as the ability to use four identical wheels on a middle school car. The weights are different as well, and that changes every year instead of every two years. It makes it difficult for someone to bring back a car from the previous year or years (not that anyone would ever do that) and be competitive.
As a classroom teacher, I don’t “teach TSA.” But, as a member of the CRC and a classroom teacher, I know that the TSA events like the CO2 cars and Transportation Modeling can be used as imagination grabbing activities that relate to the Standards for Technological Literacy. I know that the TSA chapter activities are a strong recruiting tool in high school for the technology education classes. I’ve seen the numbers increase, as well as the quality of student enrolled in the class.
A Final Thought
I’ll leave all of you that are thinking about starting a chapter with this thought: I was transferred to Riverdale High School from Pointe South Middle School literally on the last day before school was to start. I was faced with rebuilding a lab that wasn’t even complete. The printers didn’t even work. Two of my former students from Pointe South came to me and said they were going to start a Riverdale TSA Chapter. I explained that I really didn’t have time to do the work to start the chapter right then. The response came from both. “You didn’t hear us. WE are going to start the chapter. We’ll take care of it.” They did and the Riverdale program took off.
The class went from 74 students to 160 the next year. I was standing in my room the other day surrounded by technology education students, when I realized that all of them were in the top 10 in their class. I attribute it to what the program has to offer, and TSA is a big part of that.
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| Steve Price's students at work. |
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