Dr. HA Hasan started the Project Hydroplane Racing Program in 1985 as a way to motivate his students to learn science and math. Thirty years later and still going strong the racing group has a goal to get the program into every school in the world. Since 1985 Dr. Hasan estimates that more than 3,000 students and dozens of schools have experienced the system – he says that for every school that’s run the program, ten more schools have inquired about running it in their district. The team is currently running a crowdfunding campaign to make sure that as many students as possible have the opportunity to join the racing league.
The curriculum itself can be taught at elementary, middle school, high school, and train-the-trainer teacher levels. Math standards from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, science inquiry components from the National Science Education Standards, and literacy content from the Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning are all taught through the system. This crowdfunding campaign is looking for funds to automate the building process and distribute the curriculum to more students and schools.
During the campaign video the reason that the program isn’t more widespread becomes obvious – for much of the last thirty years Dr. Hasan has been measuring, drawing and cutting out the foam board components by hand. Automation of the process is definitely required, along with educator buy-in to shift class time to this new project based learning approach. The Project Hydroplane Racing Program looks like an amazing way to teach STEM concepts to students at every grade level, and I hope that this campaign is successful and that in the next few years thousands of students are exposed to the system. The campaign ends on May 9, 2018 and if successful the current estimates are for the rewards to ship in August 2018.