The YouthQuest Foundation Year in Review: 2017

YouthQuest Director of Instruction Tom Meeks with students and teachers at advanced 3D ThinkLink training at Capital Guardian Youth ChalleNGe Academy in December 2017

One of the many highlights of 2017 for our foundation was being nominated as Public Service Innovator of the Year by the Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce for our 3D ThinkLink Initiative in March. The months that followed were filled with examples of our program’s value in building better lives for at-risk youth.

“Our innovation is not that we introduce kids to 3D design and printing, it’s how we use this technology as a vehicle to teach the important life skills at-risk youth lack, such as critical thinking, problem solving, creativity and the confidence to fail,” said YouthQuest Co-Founder and President Lynda Mann. “3D printing is perfectly suited for showing kids who’ve failed in school that mistakes are part of the learning process – that they are the beginning of something good, not the end of something bad.”

YouthQuest Director of Instruction Tom Meeks at the foundation's display at the Greater Washington Innovation Awards Showcase in March 2017
Greater Washington Innovation Awards Showcase in March

Being a Greater Washington Innovation Awards nominee gave us the opportunity to tell regional leaders about YouthQuest’s life-changing work with young people like Aunya’ Jones, a top student in our 3D ThinkLink class at Maryland’s Freestate ChalleNGe Academy.

“Before 3D printing, I did not believe in myself, and I had accepted the opinion that I was not good enough,” Aunya’ wrote in an essay that earned her a $500 YouthQuest scholarship to continue her education.

“3D printing has helped guide me into making better decisions and gave me a new life skill along the way. It has really helped me understand my self-worth because now I know I can design my own future,” she explained. “I now see the bigger picture to my life’s problems and I’m not afraid to face them.”

We also awarded scholarships this year to essay contest winners Asia Baker-Stevenson from Freestate and LaMarcus Corley from the District of Columbia’s Capital Guardian Youth ChalleNGe Academy.

In his essay, LaMarcus described how the 3D ThinkLink experience changed his way of thinking. He said it helped him control his anger and improve his concentration.

“When I come to class, my whole mood changes,” LaMarcus wrote. “I become happy because I know that I’m in a good place.”

LaMarcus also said our class brought out the creativity he used to keep “all bottled in” and taught him how to “think about stuff differently.”

A YEAR OF ACHIEVEMENT

Aunya’ and LaMarcus are also two of the ChalleNGe Cadets who took part advanced training this year in the 3D ThinkLink Creativity Lab at our headquarters in Chantilly, Virginia.  

reestate ChalleNGe Academy Cadets Stephen Brown and David Kelly in Freestate ChalleNGe Academy Cadets Stephen Brown and David Kelley in advanced training in YouthQuest's 3D ThinkLink Creativity Lab in June 2017
Advanced Training in the 3D ThinkLink Creativity Lab in June

The June lab sessions focused on our project to train 3D ThinkLink graduates as Youth Mentors, giving them the skills and equipment to teach others about 3D printing and serve as positive role models in their communities. LaMarcus was there along with fellow Capital Guardian Cadet Adrian Vasquez, and David Kelly and Stephen Brown from Freestate.

Adrian told us during lab week that he used to have problems in school and our class helped get him back on track.

“I would get good grades, but my mind would always be on something else. So I got caught up with stuff I wasn’t supposed to be around. But ever since I started 3D, my mind has been nowhere near that stuff,” he said. “It’s like therapy, a type of therapy. Working on 3D designs keeps me focused, not on the other nonsense stuff.”

In December, we tried something different by taking our advanced training out of our lab and into the classroom at Camp Schwartz on the Capital Guardian campus. Cadets Keyonte Alston, Quadaija Hudgens and Alexander Price honed their design and printing skills during three days of training. A couple of weeks later, they graduated from Capital Guardian along with four other Cadets who completed our 3D ThinkLink class; Divine Carr, Markus Kemp, Keith Pettiford, and Herman Signou.

Throughout 2017, we repeatedly saw proof that what works for the teens in ChalleNGe academies also works for at-risk kids in other kinds of programs we serve.

PHILLIPS School students and teachers visit YouthQuest's 3D ThinkLink Creativity Lab in April, 2017
PHILLIPS students and teachers explore the 3D ThinkLink Creativity Lab

The PHILLIPS Programs for Children and Families has seen great success tailoring our curriculum for students on the autism spectrum. PHILLIPS was so pleased with the results of last year’s 3D ThinkLink pilot project at its Annandale, Virginia, school that it expanded the class to its Fairfax campus this year. Some of the students from last year’s class are now involved in a 3D printing club at the Annandale campus, too. It was a pleasure to have PHILLIPS students visit our 3D ThinkLink Creativity Lab in April.

It’s also been gratifying to watch the growth of our partnership with Horizons Hampton Roads, an academic, cultural, and recreational program for kids from low-income families in Virginia’s Tidewater area. We started with last year’s Summer Enrichment Program, providing a 3D ThinkLink class for sixth-graders at a single site in Portsmouth. This summer, the project expanded to sites in Norfolk and Virginia Beach, reaching a total of 32 kids. The students were “engaged and challenged” by our curriculum, according to the annual report from Horizons Hampton Roads, and teachers were excited to try some new projects they’d developed that used 3D design and printing to support STEM lessons, such as creating a paddlewheel for a ferryboat.

“The 3D printing was a great experience,” HHR teacher Franklin Baker reported. “From the design portion to troubleshooting, our students had to problem-solve from the first step to the last.”   

Highly skilled, enthusiastic teachers are the key to our program’s success. That’s why our teacher training sessions are so important. Teachers from several partner programs came to our lab for a week in February and October this year to learn about curriculum changes, software updates, and new printers and materials.

“We want to give them the best tools and motivate them to learn how to use those tools so they can be the best teachers for the at-risk students we serve,” explained YouthQuest Director of Instruction Tom Meeks.

A YEAR OF GIVING

Giving back to the community is one of YouthQuest’s core values.

One of the ways our organization gives back locally is by sponsoring the annual Step Up Loudoun Youth Competition. This was the sixth straight year we’ve provided the prize money for the contest, which challenges teens in Loudoun County, Virginia, to identify problems in their community and implement solutions.

Top 10 teams in the 2017 Step Up Loudoun Youth Competition
Top 10 teams in the 2017 Step Up Loudoun Youth Competition

Kriti Ganotra from Broad Run High School earned the $1,000 top prize this year for developing a free device that detects computer network vulnerabilities.

“I want to bring it to Loudoun County, using high schoolers to create a community where everyone is educated about cyber-bullying, cyber-security, cyber-threats and technology,” Kriti said in an interview with Loudoun Youth. “I want to bring this to every single house and eventually patent this into something that we can develop all around the nation.”

YouthQuest supporters also gave back generously this year to make our 12th annual golf tournament a success. Even though it rained for the first time in the history of our signature fundraising event, more than 100 players and volunteers turned out at Trump National Golf Club on August 7.

We were especially pleased to welcome Insperity, Pure Storage and ePlus as new sponsors this year.

For the first time, the winning team received 3D-printed trophies that were designed and produced in our lab by Tom Meeks.

YouthQuest Co-Founder Allen Cage putts in the rain at the golf tournament August 7, 2017.
YouthQuest Co-Founder Allen Cage putts at the golf tournament in August

The tournament’s Silent Auction raised more money than ever and we collected an additional $2,500 through a new fundraising tool, the Giving Tree. The tree displayed at the post-tournament reception and the August 3 VIP Reception hosted by Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar in Tysons was decorated with tags that were 3D printed in our lab. Each tag gave donors an easy way to provide equipment, supplies and other resources for our 3D ThinkLink students.

Also at the reception, we presented our 2017 Volunteer of the Year Award to Tammy Haug, National Sales Manager for AOC Solutions. Not only does Tammy volunteer at the golf tournament every year, she assisted us with our 10th Anniversary Celebration in Chantilly and the 3D printing workshops we conducted at the National Society of Black Engineers Convention in Anaheim, California, in 2015.

Our 2017 Community Partner Award went to Copy General in Sterling, Virginia, whose constant support for YouthQuest includes printing the program for the golf tournament every year. IMADE3D won the Strategic Partner Award. We’ve worked with IMADE3D since 2015 and are big fans of their JellyBox 3D printer kit. We have several of the printers in our lab and our advanced students always enjoy building and using them.  

Volunteers at the golf tournament in August
Volunteers in the clubhouse at the golf tournament in August

Our donors also gave generously on November 28, when we participated for the second year in #GivingTuesday, a global celebration of philanthropy. We also became part of AmazonSmile this year, giving Amazon users the ability to select YouthQuest as their charity. For every purchase they make, the AmazonSmile Foundation makes a donation to us.

2018 promises to be another year filled with innovations and expansion for us. We’re eager to start the next round of teacher training in February, as that will be a major step toward reactivating our 3D ThinkLink program at South Carolina Youth ChalleNGe Academy, which has been on hiatus for a year. In previous years, SCYCA has been our largest 3D class site.

We are also working toward opening the 3D ThinkLInk Creativity Lab for use by the general public and we’re planning a new fundraiser that we expect will be quite lucrative for us as well as for one lucky raffle winner. Stay tuned for details in the new year.

There’s no need to wait to help us, though. We welcome contributions at any time of the year. Please click here or contact Operations Manager Juan Louro at juan.louro@youthquestfoundation.org or 703-234-4633.

Happy New Year to all our friends!

THE YEAR IN PICTURES

3DThinkLink Students Explore Innovation in Action

Prototype Productions Inc. Co-Founder and CEO Joe Travez with 3DThinkLink students from Capital Guardian Youth ChalleNGe Academy during Vocational Orientation October 15, 2015

Vocational Orientation is an important part of YouthQuest’s 3D ThinkLink Initiative because our program does much more than introduce students to 3D design and printing.

Our goal is to teach at-risk youth to think differently so they can achieve their potential as successful adults. Their brains grow when they are exposed to new things. The more they experience, the more they have to draw on when thinking creatively about solving problems.

Prototype Productions, Inc., our 2015 3D ThinkLink Strategic Partner, teamed up with Topgolf Loudoun this month to provide a valuable Vocational Orientation experience for our students from Maryland’s Freestate ChalleNGe Academy and the District of Columbia’s Capital Guardian Youth ChalleNGe Academy. PPI Co-Founder and CEO Joe Travez organized the October 15 event which focused on innovation.

Innovation in Practice

3DThinkLink students examine 3D-printed objects at Prototype Productions, Inc. during Vocational Orientation
Students examine 3D-printed objects at PPI

As they toured PPI’s headquarters in Ashburn, Virginia, our 3D ThinkLink students discovered that innovative thinking is at the heart of the design, engineering and production work being done there. “Contemplation and action” is how Joe described it to the Cadets.

Chief Technology Officer Ben Feldman explained the ways PPI uses 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, along with traditional subtractive manufacturing methods to solve engineering problems.

For example, our students learned how the powered rail system PPI developed for military rifles not only lightens a soldier’s load by as much as 12 pounds by reducing the number of batteries he must carry, but can also be used for sending and receiving potentially lifesaving information on the battlefield.

Another PPI product they saw is a haptic device that mimics a sense of touch for training medical workers to insert IV needles or catheters into patients. Students selected for our advanced immersion training will get to try 3D modeling using haptic devices we recently added to the 3D ThinkLink Lab.

Visiting PPI showed our students some of the ways the technical knowledge and thinking skills they’re learning in class are applied in the working world. It opened their eyes to career paths they might never have considered.

Applied Innovation

From PPI, the group headed to nearby Topgolf Loudoun for a fun, hands-on lesson about innovation in action.

Topgolf Loudoun Facilities Manager Stephen Coffin explains how RFID chip-embedded golf balls are scanned and sorted
Facilities Manager Stephen Coffin explains the innovative technology behind Topgolf

Topgolf puts an imaginative, high-tech spin on the concept of a driving range. The golf balls are embedded with radio frequency identification (RFID) microchips and players try to hit targets in the outfield that are equipped with sensors that read data from the balls. The information is instantly relayed to computers that process the data, tally scores and display the information on players’ monitors.

The three-tiered facility has more than 100 player bays and hundreds of HDTVs, plus big-screen video games and other electronic goodies, all connected to a roomful of computers by miles of cable.

Director of Sales Cassandra Taylor and Facilities Manager Stephen Coffin led a behind-the-scenes tour to explain how everything works. Afterward, the students picked up the clubs and gave it a try. Few of them had ever played golf, but with a little coaching from the Topgolf pros, some of the kids quickly got into the swing of things.

A Capital Guardian ChalleNGe Academy Cadet hits a drive at Topgolf Loudoun during 3D ThinkLink class Vocational Orientation
A student experiences a high-tech twist on golf

It might have looked like just fun and games, but Topgolf was yet another new experience to stimulate creative thinking.

The Maryland and DC students wrapped up their Vocational Orientation Day by visiting the University of Maryland Tissue Engineering and Biomaterials Lab in College Park to see how researchers are using 3D printing to make medical marvels such as blood vessel grafts and bone replacements.

A week later, 25 Cadets from South Carolina Youth ChalleNGe Academy – our largest 3D ThinkLink class ever – toured 3D Systems in Rock Hill, Duncan-Parnell’s 3D printing division in Charlotte and the University of South Carolina’s Department of Mechanical Engineering in Columbia.

Innovation’s Impact

The young people in ChalleNGe programs used to be turned off to education. For any number of reasons, they dropped out or were kicked out of school. They’ve made a commitment to turn their lives around and we’re helping them turn their brains back on.

Spending a day immersed in innovation can be a profound experience for at-risk children. It inspires them to dream big. It reminds them there’s a wide world of possibilities open to them.

We are grateful to all the companies and schools that provide Vocational Orientation tours for our students. In doing so, they are giving back to the community and investing in tomorrow’s workforce.