Louisiana Delta Summer STEM Camp 2014

Ryan Pierce, Instructor of Business and Technology for Louisiana Delta Community College, Monroe Campus, gave the second lecture of the day as a follow-up to the first habit of being proactive. His talk introduced concepts relating to adversity and Paul Stoltz's "Adversity Quotient" research. Students took an assessment to gain insight into their will to succeed, perseverance, ability to handle the challenges of life, and the level of responsibility one feel’s to determine their life’s path.

On the heels of this information, came the first team challenge of the camp.  Each group was required to build a complex structure made of gum drops and tooth picks but were initially limited to one-way communication principles.  Campers took on management, runner, and builder positions and were only allowed to talk down the organizational structure.  After some time of this, the lines of communication were opened up to allow two-way communication.

	Gum Drop Structure Challenge
Team 6 - Team Royalty	16pts
Team 2 - Big Kats	14pts
Team 7 - Fire Cobras	12pts
Team 5 - MVP	10pts
Team 3 - Blue Titans	8pts
Team 1 - Silent Sloths	6pts
Team 8 - Time Lords	4pts
Team 4 - CyberNerds	2pts

One of the challenges that each team has to devote resources to is the development and presentation of a potential product with connectivity and functionality dependent upon the Internet.  In the morning liberal arts session, Professor of Business and Technology Ryan Pierce reviewed some technology already in existence that performs these functions, explored topics related to product development, discussed methods of promoting those products, and gave tips on how to deliver a solid persuasive presentation.