McPolin Elementary School fifth grade teacher Sam Thompson has shown just how far a little funding, creativity and great relationships with students through the radio-controlled car club can go.
Three of the district’s four elementary schools participate in the program, and the remaining fourth school — Parley’s Park — is set to join the high-speed action next year.
“They start it from scratch,” Thompson said, explaining how the club works while he kept an eye on a student learning to operate one of the cars through a series of cone-laden obstacles stretching down the hall. “Two of our five groups are almost done or are done, and then there’s some other groups that are riding the struggle bus right now big time.”
That’s a good thing, he said. They’re learning to work as a team and rely on one another as they try to piece the intricate little vehicles together after being given a disassembled car, instructions and tools.
“They do this, and then when their cars get done, we take them out and we play. We do little races and stuff,” he said. “Our culminating activity is we have a race at trailside.”
In the classroom, Thompson’s primarily hands-off attitude became even more apparent as groups worked through varying stages of construction. Chassis, screws, radio control units and micro parts were scattered over workstations, with fifth graders working meticulously to pull it all together.
“I didn’t screw one part in, so I needed to take it off, but our RC car is basically finished,” Cru Crawford explained as he looked over a set of instructions that made changing a car’s oil look like a 400-piece Lego set.
The wrong pieces were touching, something wasn’t working, and so he had to go back and check his group’s work. Now, he’d identified the problem and was fitting everything back together.
In another group, Jackson Beal worked on his car’s front and back modules with a fellow group member.
“The chassis is, like, all the power,” he said, before being interrupted by his co-mechanic.
“The chassis is the boing-a-boing,” she corrected him.
That’s right, Beal remembered, the power depends on the radio transmission.
Club member Abigail Tullis said several of the smaller pieces can be tricky to place and easy to lose.
“We’ve lost a couple of those,” she said. “Mr. T has an extra car that he takes pieces off of, and if you don’t find one there, then you just don’t have one, which is probably bad.”
Other groups came over to look at Tullis’ group’s car, which was much further along than several other of its peers.
Their team has some skilled technicians, Tullis explained, and they used the most important component needed for the project — teamwork.
“We work together pretty well,” she said.
Thompson, who was always available to help students with their questions but never ready to jump in and answer everything for them, said he was sure to buy extra parts.
“This girl,” he said teasingly toward one of his students, “likes to eat the parts. I don’t know. We’ve talked about it.”
He leaned over toward her to emphasize his message, “We don’t eat the parts.”
He also said the club gives kids a chance to use tools, a skill that he’s noticed becoming more and more of a dying trade for youngsters.
The club was born when he was asked to start a program at Treasure Mountain Junior High School. He’d grown up messing with RC cars, and he thought it would be a fun opportunity for students.
“Kids brought their own cars, and it was just a free-for-all,” he said.
They built snow ramps, had tons of fun and gave kids a safe place to be after school.
When he started teaching at the elementary school, he missed the activity and applied for a grant through the Park City Education Foundation.
Next year, every fifth grader in the school district will have an opportunity to join in on the fun.