Well, well, well, it has been an eventful July. Hallelujah we were able to follow up EurekaFest with an eventful month filled to the brim (perhaps overflowing) with outreach, celebrations (cue Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration” song), and reflection. To start the month off, the team scheduled a laser tag event in order to celebrate our InvenTeams grant and reminisce about EurekaFest. Two of our very own, Elise and Sarah, one of our amazing mentors, won the MVP for two of the matches. To be brutally honest, there was some inner team contention, and at one point BuzzBand members CHOSE to be on opposite teams in order to laser each other. Let’s just say that it was NOT in good fun. At the end of the day, everyone had a blast blasting (pun definitely intended) each other with lasers, playing air hockey, and watching Joe attempt his old hobby of pinball (play “PinBall Wizard” by The Who).
We couldn’t have all this fun without making plans for next year. Our original group of nine will become five, so we’ve decided to recruit new team members. Of course, while we will miss Aditi, Aditri, Janise and Justina as they move on to amazing schools like Carnegie Mellon, University of Wisconsin, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, we will have Tara and Elise as our new Business and Tech project managers, and we’re looking for new members willing to specialize in outreach and finance.
Who would have guessed that package transportation could damage the actual package. We definitely haven’t heard stories about ripped suitcases or lost important briefcases. Just our luck that the BuzzBands we sent from Boston came back to Pittsburgh no longer buzzing. Luckily, our PinBall Wizard, Elise, was able to fix the prototypes in no time (literally, with un-bee-lievable speed).
BuzzBand would not be BuzzBand if we didn’t spend time pondering life’s deepest questions from “What fruit would you be?” to“Hard soap or liquid soap?” But this month, we decided to streamline the process by making BuzzFeed quizzes for questions more abyssal than The Mariana Trench…”Which BuzzBand Team Member Are You????” and of course “Which BuzzBand Mentor You.” Funnily enough- none of us got ourselves! Unless you’re Sarah. Everyone is a Sarah, especially if you are not Sarah. If you too want to profoundly reflect on yourself, consider taking our quizzes yourself! (Disclaimer: these quizzes do not accurately portray BuzzBand.)
This summer, we had members present at three sessions of LMIT and Biogen’s BioTech in Action in order to share our BuzzBand project with an audience of high school students. Our presentation was a slightly modified version of our EurekaFest presentation, and our members fielded questions from the audience. It was a great opportunity for BuzzBand to share our story and help inspire others to innovate. All together we reached over 300 people. Thank you, Dr. Estabrooks for the opportunity!
Are you ready to wrap your head around something completely OUT OF THIS WORLD? On July 20th BuzzBand had the absolute honor of being able to present to NASA CTO Dr. Bhavya Lal. She and many associates visited CMU from Washington, D.C, and in between presentations, we presented to her two Girls of Steel projects; BuzzBand and the Chassis Project. Dr. Lal expressed a lot of interest in our projects, provided advice about internships, and gave us her business card! Most importantly, she now follows us on Twitter!
BuzzBand members seem to find themselves in the company of extremely talented individuals who love space. In addition to meeting Dr. Lal, we attended a presentation by Dr. Mae Jemison, the first female African American astronaut to venture into space. Our members listened to her talk about hard work and purpose. At the end of the event, she invited us on stage, signed our books, and we were able to take a picture. According to her, we are “the future.”
This month has definitely been a blast, but BuzzBand will be taking a hiatus until the Girls of Steel starts meeting again in September. We’ve been buzzing strongly, but we need a break. We’ll fly back around again soon! See you then 😉