I am seeking grant funding from the Foundation for West Hartford Public Schools to create The Connecticut S.T.E.A.M. Model Railroad Club in the West Hartford Public Schools in which I teach. Students of the school will make up the club (40 students in total). This program will meet weekly for seven sessions in the fall and seven sessions in the spring as part of an established after-school program that already includes busing for participants. The same forty students will be involved throughout the year. This club will help students to make curricular connections with Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math (S.T.E.A.M.) through the construction and operation of their own model railroad.

Following the standards listed at www.T-TRAK.org, each student will construct a single module as a piece of the clubs layout. Each module will have two tracks using Kato N-scale Unitrack. Students will take the single module they have built and add scenery - including landscape, groundcover, buildings, roads, etc. Once the modules are completed they will be interconnected to build a full size model railroad.

Students will learn about DC (Direct Current) power, which is the AC (Alternating Current) power which comes from an outlet that has been converted to model train use. Students will experience how DC model trains move faster as the power is increased and slower as the power is decreased. Students will also learn about the newest industry standard DCC (Digital Command Control) which embeds signals, similar to Morse code, into the DC power to send commands to DCC-enabled locomotive for direction, speed, and sound enabling. Club members will build their own DCC control station using a Raspberry Pi (single board computer) running the Raspbian operating system and JMRI Digital Command Control software. Students will also build their own DCC++ power supply which will convert the AC power (sine wave) from an outlet to DCC power (square wave) in order to send power and commands to DCC-enabled locomotives. This DCC power station will use a motor shield and an Arduino (open-source electronic prototyping platform) to write code which will convert DC to DCC power.

Students will learn how to connect school owned iPad’s through Wi-Fi and use them as a wireless throttle to control DCC-enabled locomotives on their layout. Furthermore, students will learn how to connect a virtual reality handset through Bluetooth and use it as a wireless throttle to control DCC enabled locomotives on their layout.

There will be several culminating experiences for this organization. Club members will participate in team assemblies where their operating layout will be on display. Club members will display their model railroad layout to their peers and demonstrate what they have learned about construction, decoration, and control of their model railroad. Classroom students will have the opportunity to control the trains on the layout. The school wide assembly will feature, Mr. Kevin Burns from the State of Connecticut - Department of Transportation as a guest speaker. He will speak about Operation Lifesaver, a free service that provides an active public education program dedicated to preventing and reducing incidents at highway-rail grade crossings, and to make the public more aware of the dangers encountered when trespassing on railroad property. Students will leave this school wide assembly with magnets, coloring books, pins, and other fun materials to help remind them of safety around highway-rail grade crossings.

Lastly, The Connecticut S.T.E.A.M. Model Railroad Club has been invited to participate in the Cheshire High School Model Railroad Show in November and March. Carpooling will be arranged with parents, similar to the Invention Convention or FIRST Lego League. The classroom teacher will transport all of the modules to Cheshire High School. Students will display their model railroad together for the first time. They will take turns controlling the trains and sharing what they have discovered with the public and fellow model railroad enthusiasts.

As we look to the future of this program, I am seeking to confirm with the PTO at both schools that some amount of funding will be available to purchase supplies to continue building modules with future fourth and fifth graders. I am very interested in rebuilding the West Hartford Public Schools model train show which was quite popular in the early 2000’s. I have been in contact with Cathy Lucas from King Philip Middle School who used to organize the train show. She has shared all of her materials. I have also discussed hosting the train show with local vendors and model railroad clubs and have received positive feedback. I am optimistic that the money earned from hosting the WHPS Train Show could provide the funding for the club to continue in future years.

Finally, once the club has a completed layout, we will seek an invitation from the Amherst Railway Society to display our layout at their Railroad Hobby Show at the Eastern States Exposition Fairgrounds (Home of the Big E) in West Springfield, Massachusetts. This model railroad show is the largest of its kind in the region with more than 22,000 people in attendance and boasting more than 400,000 square feet of trains and train related exhibits.

For more information, please contact our club at: ConnecticutSTEAMModelRailroad@gmail.com