A biographical sketch begins after my day job retirement some 10 years ago.
Since then, my focus has been to encourage and to mentor high school students as they engage in science and technology motivated pursuits. To this end, I have been involved in the creation of workshops and have given lectures for several schools in the area. I also volunteer as a judge for science fair projects locally at Lehigh University and regionally in Philadelphia.
Aviation interests have been a constant in my life, although my career had taken a different turn. I am a life member of the IEEE and my undergraduate degree is in Mathematics and Physics. Most of the projects involving aerodynamics and lift I’ve judged through the years failed in their execution because of the students' technical reliance and lack of knowledge on the use and misuse of Bernoulli’s Principal. These failures led to further investigation on the sources of information available. Whether textbook or Internet, I discovered that the broad spectrum of these can be wrong and/or misleading.
The question was what experimental methods would work best in discovery and were there educational sources that have successfully tackled aerodynamic experimental issues. Put simply - experimentally - Bernoulli doesn’t work.
I found through research but one satisfactory experimental approach (Newtons), and ironically, it led me back to the AMA and their Aerolab initiative. I took Aerolab under my wing and exposed its methods through posters and student projects. This was all done with the caveat that only 5 of the lessons presented would keep students’ interest throughout. Aerolab was a work in progress. I’ve progressed beyond it and am sharing with students my experimental work with airplanes, along with associated history lessons that tag along for additional interest.
There is, of course, more detail, photos, and information to share for those that might be interested.
