The Remote Control Car Math Challenge is part of the Skunk Works Education project at Nova Southeastern University’s Fischler College of Education. The Lockheed Martin company assembled the original Skunk Works team to do the seemingly impossible, build planes unlike any other in a ridiculously short amount of time (Skunk Works).
Primarily learned from Wharton’s MGMT 100 (now Wharton 101) if you give a group of ambitious students a problem without a lot of constraints or rules, they will come up with fascinating solutions.
We assembled a small team and went looking for problems in the K-12 system. We didn’t have to look far. The first elementary school principal we spoke with had the problem on the tip of her tongue, fifth graders applying math skills (she also identified third grade reading but, that wasn’t as fun).