 "Photo: Kerry Lentz")
Fifty students from Atkins Middle School kicked-off their journey of assembling and creating their own low-rider/dream bikes, with help from Texas Tech's School of Art and the university's Texas Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Center on Monday.
Future Akins-Tillett, an assistant professor of art, said this is the fifth year since the art school began working with low-riders, the third year working with schools and the first year T-STEM is involved.
Beccy Hambright, program coordinator for T-STEM Center, said middle school students will modify bikes using engineering models during the program.
She said students will be guided by their teachers and student teachers from the art school in assembling and designing the bicycles.
Akins-Tillett said this year, all participants of the program received their own bike because Tech's T-STEM Center contributed 50 bicycles for the students.
John Chandler, director of Tech's T-STEM Center, said T-STEM is one of seven in the state working with public schools, with T-STEM focusing on a teacher-training curriculum in engineering.
Chandler said because engineering education is decreasing in the United States, the program provides students in kindergarten through 12th grade with a curriculum that will help teachers implement more engineering lessons in the classrooms.
"There is no tradition for engineering in public schools," he said. "There is a shortage for engineers, and we are trying to turn this around, and the best way is to train teachers to engage kids in learning and learning about math and science."
He said more than half the students going into engineering at the university level change majors by their sophomore year, a time when they are working on pre-requisites.
"By the year 2010," Chandler said, "more than 90 percent of the engineers will be in Asia."
Todd DeVriese, director of the School of Art at Tech, said the program Monday was designed to get the ball rolling and get all the students and their mentors introduced to each other before beginning the low-rider/dream bike project.
He said the project is a way for the school to fulfill its mission to work with students and help them understand the importance and significance of art in their lives.
"It is important for people to have moments in time where their imagination can be captured and their dreams can be brought to reality," DeVriese said.
Lyn Brown, art teacher from Atkins Middle School, said the students selected were those who were in her seventh period as well as those in a seventh-grade science class.
Kyle McQuilkin, a doctoral student in fine arts, said his doctoral research is on low-rider bicycles.
He said he put some low-rider bicycles in exhibit in the art school and the attention it received is what initiated the project.
"We are not just about math, science and history, but art and custom cars and low-riders," McQuilkin said, "and that is more relevant to the community."
William Cannings, associate professor of sculpture, said he spent most of his youth in Great Britain riding bikes.
"I always had bikes in the back of my mind," he said. "When I started working at Tech, my idea of bikes and art came together, and that was around the time Kyle (McQuilkin) started to talk about low-riders."
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