Want to share your skills, talents and passion and positively impact the lives of Quad City area students?  Please consider volunteering for one of the upcoming student competitions.  Previous volunteering experience is not required.  Feel free to share this communications with others interested in volunteering.

All of the events are free and open to the public to attend.

• Saturday, April 11 - Mousetrap Racecar Engineering & Design Competition 10+ volunteers in several different roles are needed to support the 3rd annual Mousetrap Car Competition.  The event will be held at Davenport Williams Intermediate School from 8:00 AM - ~ 3:00 PM.  The event is open to students in grades 6-8 with teams of 2-6 students.  18 Teams are expected for April 11.Link to Further information including a link to an on-line form to volunteer.
  
  
• Friday, April 17 - Trebuchet Egg Throw Competition11+ volunteers in several different roles are needed for supporting the 8th Annual Trebuchet Egg Throw Contest.  The event will be hosted at Bettendorf High School with the tentative schedule from 10:30 AM - 5:00 PM.  The event is open to local high school teams with 27 teams competing in 2014.Link to Further information including a link to an on-line form to volunteer.
  
  
• Friday, May 8 - Cardboard Boat Regatta Race 10+ volunteers in several different roles are need to support the 8th annual cardboard boat regatta race.  The event is being held at Bettendorf at the Middle Park Lagoon.  The tentative schedule is from 7:30 AM - 2:00 PM.  The event is open to local high school students with 36 teams that competed in 2014. Link to Further information including a link to an on-line form to volunteer.

Applications for volunteers will continue to be accepted for each event until all of the roles are filled.

Other Free STEM Events You are Invited to attend:

• Saturday, April 11 - National Robotics Demonstrations
  In celebration of National Robotics Week and to get students excited about STEM, a demonstration of FIRST Robotics will be held at the Putnam Museum.  A Junior FIRST LEGO League Expo which include students age 6-9 will be from 12:00 - 2:00 PM.  Displays from student robotic teams for FIRST LEGO League (FLL), FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC), and FIRST Robotic Competition will be held from 1:00 - 4:00 PM.  This includes several local teams that will be completing at the FIRST World Championship and Other International Tournaments.  The demos are free and open to the public.  The Putnam's Exhibit Alien Worlds and Androids is also available with ticket purchase for attendees along with the movie, Big Herod 6 3D and the Science Center with 45 hands-on stations . 
  Link to Further Information
  
  
• April 23-25 - FIRST World Championship - St. Louis
  The annual FIRST World Championship will be held in St. Louis will 18,000+ students from 30+ Countries expected.  The event is free and open to the public.  Local teams scheduled to participate include the Davenport West High School FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) Combustible Lemons Team #5466 and the Junior FIRST LEGO League team from Camanche, the Unstoppable Six Team # 378.  
  Link to Further Information

For further information or questions, please contact Carl Loweth, QCESC STEM Coordinator at e-mail carl.loweth@gmail.com or via phone at

563-505-1196.

The conditions for landing the Boeing 777 safely should have been perfect, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

The sky over San Francisco was clear, the wind negligible and the pilot of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 had 11,000 feet of runway in front of him.

But there was a problem. The runway's automatic landing aids were out of service because of construction on that July 2013 day, which meant pilots had to land using old-fashioned visual and manual skills.

They had been doing it all day, but the Asiana Airlines pilot later told NTSB investigators he had been nervous about attempting to land using "stick-and-rudder" flying skills, and the ensuing crash killed three people and injured nearly 200, the Associated Press reported at the time.

The pilot's hesitancy and apparent inability to fly without automated assistance didn't surprise Rick Eriksen, an experienced aviator and one of the founders of Aviation Consulting 360 (www.AskAC360.com), a firm that specializes in assisting businesses with their aviation needs.

Eriksen says he believes advances in airplane automation may have reached a point where they are starting to hinder rather than help safety, with pilots so dependent on the technology that they fail to develop real flying skills.

Pilots also become so fixated on high-tech computer equipment that they can fail to notice hazards in clear view right outside the window, he says.

"In my opinion, most technology is no longer adding anything new in the way of meaningful advancements," Eriksen says. "Planes fly the same way they flew back when I was flying in the 1970s, '80s and '90s. And we made it work with much more reliability than they do with today's over-the-top automation."

Eriksen says he loves technology and is far from a Luddite. He understands the benefits that technology affords everyone every day and the improvements it brought to aviation.

But the rise of automation also comes with downsides, he says, and changes in attitudes and training may be in order for the aviation community. Among his suggestions for improving the situation:

•  Aviators should not get caught up in the latest high-tech fad. To increase their profits, equipment manufacturers overwhelm the marketplace with automation that, in most cases, is redundant and meaningless, not to mention just plain expensive. A flight-management system is not the same as an iPhone, Eriksen says, so tweaks and added features that exist just for the sake of creating demand for the latest, new-fangled version of the product don't cut it.

•  Pilot training needs greater focus on manual skills. Pilots essentially are becoming computer operators, with the computers often not only flying the aircraft but also making decisions for pilots, Eriksen says. That is having a direct and exponentially negative effect on basic flying skills, he says. Eriksen isn't the only one who has raised this concern. Christopher A. Hart, the acting chairman of the NTSB, said in an October speech that automation of aircraft and other transportation vehicles has contributed to decreasing professionalism, leading to accidents.

"Think of it this way," Eriksen says. "A musician must practice every day. A baseball player must practice every day. Heck, even a clown has to practice. So why do pilots get to push buttons on an auto pilot and consider that flying? That is not flying."

But those pilots can record in their log books that they flew a certain number of hours, when in reality "they got about the same amount of hands-on flying practice as the passengers," he says.

"Maybe it is time for the FAA to start to begin to differentiate between flying time and computer time," Eriksen says. "One is a serious business that can get you killed. The other is just a game that only gets serious when the computer fails, and by then it is too late to practice."

About Rick Eriksen

Rick Eriksen is one of the founders of Aviation Consulting 360 (www.askac360.com), a firm that specializes in assisting businesses with their aviation needs. He is a career aviator, entrepreneur and industry professional. Among his achievements, Eriksen created and founded Midwest Air Charter, the first single-flag carrier for the United States Federal Reserve Bank. At Midwest, he directed flight operations for 55 aircraft flying 72,000 miles daily without a single incident or accident and with a 99.75 percent on-time record. Eriksen also previously managed Northern Hemisphere flight operations for Mercedes Benz, North America and was the creator and one of the founding members of Jet Support Services Inc., known today as JSSI.

DAVENPORT–Shopping for a laptop? Now you can purchase gently used, refurbished laptops and flat-screen computer monitors online from Waste Commission of Scott County's Electronic Demanufacturing Facility, through its new Electronics Reuse Program.  

"We're proud of our new Reuse Program. It's another step in the right direction for the environment and for our community," said Kathy Morris, Director of the Commission.  

Reuse saves natural resources, extends the life of discarded electronics, and retains their value close to home.  

The Electronic Demanufacturing Facility launched its Reuse Program in January 2015 to comply with the R2:2013 (Responsible Recycling) standard for electronics recyclers. Rather than demanufacture and recycle electronics with additional useful life, the Facility now tests some items for key functions and refurbishes them for resale.  

To view or purchase electronics, visit the eBay store: http://stores.ebay.com/wastecomrecycling/. For safety reasons, all transactions occur online, and all purchased items are shipped to the buyer at no extra charge. No shopping or viewing of items for sale may take place at the Electronic Demanufacturing Facility.

Through the Reuse Program, the Facility continues to focus on data security as the highest priority. All data received is securely managed and destroyed. For hard drives that will be reused, technicians use state-of-the-art hardware and software to destroy all data found on the drive. The success of this process is then validated through a second, independent review. Finally, the data-destruction process is audited on a regular basis by a third party.

The Electronic Demanufacturing Facility holds R2:2013, ISO 14001:2004, and OHSAS 18001:2007 certifications and is a Microsoft Registered Refurbisher.

The Facility is located at 1048 East 59th St., Davenport. Hours are 7:30 a.m.-4 p.m. weekdays. No appointment is necessary to drop off electronics, and there is no charge for residents of Scott and Rock Island counties.

For more information, please visit http://www.wastecom.com or call (563) 381-1300.

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