During the summer of 2014, I led a team of 7 students on a cross-country bicycle journey from San Francisco to Washington DC, stopping to teach STEM workshops along the way. This project was pioneered by a classmate of mine, Turner Bohlen, in 2013, and he called it Spokes America. The team mission is to bicycle across the country and stop at libraries, schools, summer camps and other educational institutes along the way to teach STEM workshops. Each member of my team came up with their own original and exciting workshop based on their own interests. My brilliant teammates gave workshops on immunology, design thinking, coding, electronics, bicycle parts, mathematics and manufacturing. We visited 10 different locations in the course of 2 months, and rode over 3500 miles. We were sponsored by MIT, Harvard and industry partners like Texas Instruments and IAT. 

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The trip took about 6 months of planning. Each of my teammates had a set of responsibilities for putting the trip together: media relations, fundraising, equipment purchasing, route planning, educational planning, we did it all on our own. We managed to raise over $20,000 for all of our equipment and travel costs. We were publicized on various blogs and newspapers. We built a logistics system that has allowed the Spokes America project to continue into its fourth year in 2016. Most importantly, we taught over 100 children in 10 different places over the course of the summer. 

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This project was a fantastic learning opportunity for all of us as well. You can read about our trip from the links on the left. And don't forget to check out the current team's work here.