I won't play around -- we're failing to prepare our youth for real futures. Especially in a city like Detroit, my hometown. And we're doing our best to change that.
When I attended high school in 2001-2005 there weren't a lot of opportunities to dig into real world technical projects. "Technology class" was a joke. The auto shop program was basically a waiting room so the football coach could stay on the faculty. I found solace on the Robotics Team but that only ran for a couple months a year.
My real education began at 3PM when I got home. I logged online, read all that I could, and messed around in the garage. I garbage-picked neat looking pieces of electronics, car parts, and ephemera from the neighborhood on trash day so I could take them apart.
The point here is that I developed an interest in making things despite the educational system. This sucks and we're going to change that for a handful of kids.
Meet the Detroit Student Racing Team.
We had our second meeting last night where a handful of students and their parents are learning how to convert this 1955 Buick Century Special into a real electric racecar. Not only that, but they're going to learn how to drive it. They'll get race training in our Lexus ES250 racecar in a real race setting.
Over the course of the summer these students will learn skills that very few have to prepare them for a future that most don't know are coming. Our volunteer mentors are some of the very best in automotive engineering, design, fabrication, and racing.
How are we going to fund this program? No idea. Right now we're just using the existing tools and parts I've been collecting for years. But we'll find a way.
It just takes a handful of committed people to do nearly anything.