By Sunny Simmonds, NAWCTSD

On July 1, Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division (NAWCTSD) partnered with the National Center for Simulation (NCS) and the University of Central Florida (UCF) Institute for Simulation & Training (IST) to host the ZORA! STEM Summer Camp, a middle school camp organized by the Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community.

Team-Orlando-Simulation-NAwCTSD-STEM2Lt. Gen. (USAF, retired) Tom Baptiste, NCS president, welcomed 23 students and four chaperones, who toured IST and NAWCTSD. Eileen Smith and her team at the E2i Creative Studio provided demonstrations at IST, while Cmdr. Henry Phillips led the visiting group through NAWCTSD to include a demonstration of a large scale Visual System and discussions with Navy/USMC aviators.

Just a couple of weeks later on July 14, a YMCA middle school summer camp visited NAWCTSD for a STEM experience, and this group was welcomed by John Meyers, Technical Director, and Capt. Wes Naylor, Commanding Officer.

Bob Seltzer, Deputy for Research and Technology Program Office, was assisted by a group of scientists and engineers, and led the attendees through demonstrations of a Navy simulator and discussions with Navy/United States Marine Corp aviators. They also guided the student attendees through a Tower of Power exercise which explains the Engineering design process. This was the first of two YMCA camp groups scheduled to visit NAWCTSD; the second took place on July 28.

Rounding out the July STEM activities, NAWCTSD hosted a UCF Camp Connect II group in partnership with UCF’s College of Engineering and Computer Science Office of Diversity on July 24. Camp Connect II targets rising 9th to 11th graders from underrepresented and underprivileged communities.

Meyers and Seltzer welcomed the group and shared their backgrounds and Navy engineering experience. The group then visited NAWCTSD modeling, simulation and visual systems laboratories, and met with NAWCTSD scientists and engineers who demonstrated projects and shared their experiences with them.

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