Visioneering 2005
Entertainment for Tomorrow

Ms. Debbie DeCasper, an 8th grade Language Arts teacher, and I were privileged to escort twenty of Polk's brightest students to this year's Visioneering 2005. We arrived at SMU with plenty of  time to get our new Visioneering t-shirts and name tags, find out our team numbers, and get some of the best seats in the house. We had met earlier in the week with my team's engineer, Andrew Thillainathan, from Nortel Networks. This year's theme for Visioneering was "Entertainment for Tomorrow". SMU keeps impressing us every year with some very excellent speakers, and this year proved even bigger and better than before.

Larry Brantley, the voice of "WishBone",  was again this  year's Emcee. He asked the question, "What is Visioneering, aside from a really cool word?" He continued with, "Visioneering is an opportunity for you guys to see and experience first hand how subjects like math and science apply in the real world." He reminded us of last year's theme (Security System of the Future) and said that "this year we decided to lighten it up a little bit, this year it's all about entertainment." He went on to explain that the students would be solving a problem related to an entertainment theme. There was definitely excitement in the air...

Larry introduced the first speakers of the day, Davis Peden and John Korry, of Accenture. They spoke to the students, talking about just how important each and every one of them were. John told the students "that you are the people that solve problems and make this place a better and a more entertaining environment for all of us."

Our next speaker was Sue Spradley, the President of Global Operations at Nortel. She talked about who Nortel is. "We make the stuff that makes the wireless networks work, the cable television that brings you things like [cartoons], and we also make the equipment that Southwestern Bell, Verizon, and those kind of companies use." She talked in detail about how Nortel has been working in India with the relief effort, in setting up wireless networks to help with communications. She impressed upon the audience that because engineers were working to make this possible, peoples' lives were being saved, and that in the future engineers would be needed to continue to help in solving the problems in the world.

Torrence Robinson, Director of Public Affairs for Texas Instruments was up next. He added to what the other speakers had said by talking about how math, science, and engineering would provide opportunities for the young people in the audience in the future. He talked about how taking upper level math courses in high school would increase the likelihood that a student would graduate college. As he left the stage the kids in the audience were definitely energized for the day...

The next speaker was totally awesome. Brandon Oldenburg from Reel FX came on stage and amazed the kids with some of the things he has had the opportunity to work on. He showed us clips from everything from video games, to movies, even commercials that I had never thought about needing special effects. One of my students said that she thought he was the coolest speaker of the day (which I'm sure can be said for each one of them). It was interesting to see all the different things he's been able to work on, and to listen to him talk about how his team of people worked together to come with ideas for the projects they've worked on.

From here we split up... the red teams went to solve each of their assigned problems, while the blue teams got to look at all of the different sponsors' booths. This year's Visioneering sponsors included the SMU School of Engineering, The Institute for Engineering Education at SMU, Accenture, Texas Instruments, EDS, Nortel Networks, American Airlines, Lockheed Martin Missile and Fire Control, the Lopez Garcia Group, Esoftsolutions, Greater Dallas Chamber, The Science Place, and the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE). New sponsors this year were Radio Disney, AMS Group, the Dallas Museum of Natural History, and Turner Construction.

Since both Ms. DeCasper's and my teams were in the blue group, all of our students enjoyed walking around the different booths looking at the given information and interacting with the sponsors. All of the kids enjoyed going through and seeing all the "stuff", and got some great ideas that eventually helped in solving the design challenge we worked on after lunch.

Before we went to lunch, Miss Texas, Tyler Willis, arrived and was able to address the students. She told the students that Visioneering, "equals inspiration plus conviction plus action plus determination plus completion." Tyler talked about what it took to be a leader, and gave the kids four characteristics of a leader. They were, 1) integrity, 2) self esteem, 3) goal setting, and 4) respect.

After lunch we broke off into our individual teams and went to work on the design challenge. The challenge each team was given was to design something related to the entertainment of tomorrow. My team began by discussing ideas about what their entertainment system had to have and what it should be able to do. They said it had to be wireless, had to project a holographic type image, and should be easy to use. It had to be able to be used for completing work assignments, play games, and surf the internet, with built in virus protection for product safety. They came up with the "Micro Optic 3000", a pair of glasses that would project an image that would appear to be in front of the wearer, and would be used with a pair of electronic gloves, all of which would be connected wirelessly to a CPU. Each student took part in the presentation to the judges, and each participated in answering the judges' questions after the presentation was over.

Ms. DeCasper's team had similar requirements for their product, which was a belt that would produce a holographic projection. It also could be used for work or play, and they included information in their presentation on how it could help handicapped people be more active in their lives.

We relaxed at this point. Some of my students wandered through the booths again, while others sat down in front of the stage in the main room to await the awards ceremony. Our hopes were up, and all of the kids were excited, hoping that we'd win at least one of the awards.

Here are some other pictures that were taken while we were there...
 

	This picture shows a few of my students checking out the Texas Instruments' booth. They were demonstrating their calculators, and some of the different things you can do with them.
	The American Airlines booth had some cool stuff to look at, including a "black box" and a piece of fan from a jet engine...
	One of my students, with Felicia Hopson, one of the wonderful people who make Visioneering a success.
	Two of my students wearing the helmets they picked up from one of the sponsors. There was a LOT of cool stuff for the kids today.
	Here is part of my team making their presentation to the judges. They enjoyed making their pitch to the judges.
	This is what my students had drawn to help describe their product, the "Micro Optic 3000", to the judges.
	For the past couple of years, the teachers at Polk have been getting our students to apply the use of "Thinking Maps". As you can see by this picture, my students have taken the experience to heart...
	Ms. DeCasper told me she was very pleased with her team. She took this picture of them as they were finishing their presentation, a skit, to the judges.
	"Mr. Scrudder, do you think Miss Texas will take a picture with us?"
	Miss Texas was kind enough to pose again, this time with one of my girls. (She had been in a pageant a couple of years ago, and was excited about meeting Miss Texas.)
	"My brother is going to be SO jealous when he sees this picture!"

J. K. - I learned that they are going to invent remote controls that have pull up screens on the side.

T. L. - Visioneering was a great experience. I learned about binary code, and what the armed forces will have in the future.

D. S. - It was cool thinking of some way to help people throughout the world and that would be so much fun to play with.

M. Z. - I thought Visioneering was a great way to learn more about technology.

We won two of the awards this year. Ms. DeCasper's team won the "That's Entertainment" Award, sponsored by EDS. My team won the award sponsored by Esoftsolutions, called the "enVISION" award. I have to admit that we were not only happy that one of the teams won, but we were all ecstatically surprised when the second team was called to the stage as a winner, right after the first team.

The surprises continued after the last awards were given out. Earlier in the day I had noticed on the schedule that there was a concert planned, but it didn't include who was singing. I had caught one of the SMU people, and all I got from them was, "It's a secret," and a really big smile as they walked away. Larry introduced the music group, Jump 5, and as they came out on stage I noticed several of my students' jaws dropping open. I leaned over to the girl sitting right next to me and asked who Jump 5 was. She responded by saying they were one of her favorite music groups. Now this was a major surprise.

Ms. DeCasper and I are making plans for next year. See you at Visioneering 2006.

NOTE: If you find any information on this page that is not correct, such as a person's title or a link related to a person or company, please email me at scrudderr@cfbisd.edu with the corrected information. Also, If there is a web site related to a given person or company that you think should be here and isn't, please email it also.