Team 624 Parents and Mentors,Wow, what an extremely successful 10th Annual Science Day Camp (SDC)  this past weekend! One of the many ways Team 624 encourages and grows the focus of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) in our community.  Cryptonite students led the way, manning science stations, and assuring all those attending learned a new level of STEM. It was a fun and educational success with more than 110 student “Campers”, grades 4th through 7th attending.  The Campers rotated through a record-breaking 10 different STEM-based stations (in honor of our 10th anniversary!), including several new stations such as biomedical engineering, material science, detective chemistry and civil engineering.A few highlights include prototyping and testing earthquake-proof buildings, learning about monomers and polymers while making slime, using forensic chemistry to identify the culprit in a diamond heist, going bananas while controlling a computer (ask your student about that one)!!Please view our gallery of SDC photos at https://gallery.team624.org/Coming-Soon-1-6-18/Science-Day-Camp-11-10-18/.The feedback received at the end of the day was incredibly positive and we could not have had such a well-run event without the steadfast support of Team 624 team members, parents, mentors and other volunteers.Thanks Again!

Hi Team 624 Parents and Mentors,Congratulations to the Team 624 Annual Halloween Food and Supply Drive! We had awesome results despite a one-day delay due to bad weather. On November 1st, fourteen CRyptonite students participated in our team’s annual Halloween Food and Supply Drive. Starting a week before Halloween, the students delivered flyers and bags throughout the Bayou Crossing Neighborhood (just north of Beck Junior High) requesting food and supply donations for Team 624 to gather on Halloween night.  And we had fantastic support from our neighbors! The students collected over 350 pounds worth of donations, along with a cash donation. All of the items collected were delivered to the Katy Christian Ministries Food Bank on Saturday, November 4th. It is great to see Team 624 reach out and help those in our community. Please thank the students for their work on this great effort!

Hi Team 624 Parents and Mentors, A group of students and mentors from Cryptonite, Team 624 toured Knust-Godwin’s Katy equipment manufacturing facilities on Saturday, September 27th. The tour was hosted by Mike Corliss, VP-Technology for Knust-Godwin. CRyptonite students were astonished but entranced by the large variety of tools and machines. There were dozens of CNCs, Mills, Lathes, and even several state-of-the-art Renishaw metal 3D printers. The metal 3D printers perform “additive manufacturing” so precise that additional machining is not required and exotic shapes small and large can be made (see the picture of the metal, ultra-small, highly detailed Statue of Liberty pictured below). The metal 3D printers utilize high temperatures, exotic metal powders, inert gas atmospheres, and powerful lasers and were one of the major highlights of the tour. Many of the students had seen 3D printers that form parts with plastic, but these industry-changing machines were a completely new level of impressive. Along with the laser metal printing, the student got to see many other types of manufacturing, many of which were new to 624 students, such as Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) manufacturing. It was a great tour of a high tech manufacturing facility located right in Katy. Mr Corliss also pointed out that Knust-Godwin offers summer internships for High School and College age students and encouraged Team 624 students to apply! Thank you Mr Corliss for the great tour and great opportunities in the future!See a full set of the pictures for the tour on the team web site at: https://gallery.team624.org/Coming-Soon-1-6-18/Knust-Godwin-Facility-Tour-10-27-18/

Juan Ruiz, Team 624 alumni, with John Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, visited with CRyptonite students and mentors at the RSC to talk about his mechanical engineering work on the Parker Solar Probe. He explained steps from development, then showed the students a video of the launch of the probe which was August 12 at 3:31 eastern time. On October 3rd, the probe successfully completed its first orbit around Venus.For more information, here is the mission website link: http://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/

Sewa students from the Alief School District visited CRyptonite at the Robert R. Shaw Center for a fun morning of STEM activities! The students participated in bottle car racing, wind tunnel experiments, and straw rocket launching. We really enjoyed being able to meet and work with students of all different backgrounds, and hope to see them again soon!