MIT Spokes 2026

Tag: learning-festival

  • Day 47: hot springs and hot people

    Day 47: hot springs and hot people

    Learning Festival in Glenwood Springs, CO — 0 mi, 0 ft

    The nice thing about learning festival days is that we can sleep in. 8 am most days is a late start — thus, our 8 am alarm on these days is a sweet treat, and we had a nice rolling start to the day. To make things even better, we decided to stop by a coffee shop for breakfast, a semi-regular routine ahead of the learning festival. Nunu, Nate, Carmen, and I drove the van downtown and walked into the shop (Drew biked to Wendy’s instead, Aarushi and Tatiana were staying in a hotel with Tatiana’s visiting family). Along the way, we saw a cute doggy daycare van picking up a dog for the day. Honestly a dream job, just picking up adorable dogs and watching over them.

    So cute!! There were dogs inside already, greeting their friend as they got on.

    The coffee shop’s name was Wild Coffee, and true to its name I spotted some interesting speciality lattés that were calling my name. I ended up choosing a Raspberry Danish Latté and a breakfast burrito, all of which were quite unique but delicious. I also liked the decor a lot, as I noticed a quote from Mary Oliver that my favorite English teacher in high school would always quote and centered our graduation speech about: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Clearly, Spokes is a part of my answer to that question, even if the rest is not planned out yet. I’d love to challenge others to think about this too!

    After filling our hands with too many drinks and things to eat, we got back into the van to rush to the location of our learning festival: the library. Turns out, we really didn’t need to rush to the van, as the library was a whopping one block away. We spent more time trying to find marginally closer parking than it would have taken if we simply walked there. Finally walking into the library, we were reunited with the other 3 members of our team, all coming from different directions and beautifully coming together at the front doors. 

    Thank you so much for having us!

    The library team showed us to the room we would all be doing our workshops in, which had plenty of room for all of us to spread out. We’re rarely all in the same room, so it was nice to share a space and get to see each other’s faces throughout the day and escape the bubble of our workshops for a bit. However, first things first, Nunu and I ran through the well-practiced routine of pulling out our templates, papers, rulers, markers, colored pencils, tape… the list goes on. Quite chaotic, but there is a method to the madness, I swear. I took bites of my burrito in between supplies, scarfing it down with as much dignity as possible (spoiler: there wasn’t much). 

    As we neared setup completion, Tatiana brought the kids in for her activity of choice — Simon Says! I always look forward to seeing what activity Tatiana picks or comes up with each festival to get the kids going. I’m still traumatized by winning the rock-paper-scissors tournament twice, so I was glad to see this one return. Except these kids were the worst group ever at this game. I don’t know if they’ve ever played Simon Says…? Even when Simon (Tatiana) was clearly not saying to do something, they would still all do it. It was very entertaining to watch, regardless. 

    After getting the energy out, we split into four groups, roughly sorted by age. Nunu and I got to work with the youngest kids first, and worked our way up to the oldest group at the very end. We often adapt the projects we do based on age level and ability, but today we had a large variety, ranging from the traditional houses to fun animals and cacti. One of my favorite interactions was with a boy who initially wanted to create a cardboard dog like the one we have in our examples. However, during the process, he messed up his design a bit such that the dog wasn’t salvageable. Instead of giving up, he reassessed his materials and realized that although it didn’t look like the dog he was aiming for, it would still make a great bird — thus, he pivoted to creating a bird, the first of our workshops. The end result was amazing, and he received a lot of compliments for it, especially with how unique it was. I think it was an interesting lesson on adaptation and persistence. It’s easy to perceive many things as “failures,” especially during the design process, but allowing yourself to continue and consider new pathways can result in even more special outcomes. 

    The bird + an impressive giraffe made by another student

    For lunch, the library graciously provided us food from a local restaurant! I scarfed down most of my fish and chips before it was back to regularly scheduled programming.

    A glimpse of how messy our table gets + the completed houses

    While demonstrating the cardboard animals, I also made an elephant I thought was cute, so it’s getting its own moment to shine. 🙂

    Ignore the abnormally wide legs

    After debating World Cup teams and listening to jokes I felt too old to understand, the day came to a close and the kids were slowly picked up. We all took a breather and planned out the next couple of hours. It was imperative that we stuck to our schedules because at 5:00 pm, we were meeting up with STANFORD SPOKES!!! They were graciously making the longgg 2.5 hour drive to meet us for dinner and hot springs, after a long day of biking nonetheless. Although we were both in Colorado at the moment, our route goes parallel but north of theirs, subsequently requiring a bit of driving to cover the gap. We ran back to our host’s house, changed, and went to the restaurant to get a table. Funnily enough, the restaurant was the same as where we got our lunch from! 

    As we waited, we were split between waiting at our comically large table and outside, not sure what was the least awkward way. We ended up doing a halfway meetup, which was more complicated than if we had just chosen either one. The way we choose to operate is fascinating sometimes… But once we were seated together, we immediately started chatting about each other’s journeys thus far. We traded stories, taking turns to laugh at funny scenarios and understand difficult challenges we’ve all faced. Paisley, one of the Stanford Spokes, had just been attacked by a BEAR earlier that day (read: taken a nasty fall) and still bore the fresh scars. I really admire her ability to get back on the bike after that and also still come all the way here, being positive about it. She said she took her bandages off to look cooler coming in, and they definitely were all super cool to talk to. I also found my non-driver counterpart, Ian, and got to bond over being flamed for not having a licence. Funnily enough, the 4 frosh (Carmen, Drew, Ian, and I) were all together on one end of the table. Maybe we identified each other subconsciously?

    We kept talking and talking, causing our poor waiter to have to wait much longer than usual to take our orders and to start eating. Carmen and I split a veggie mac n cheese and a mediterranean salad that was SO GOOD. I haven’t had a salad like that in a long time, one that I kept scarfing down. 

    Sooooo yummmmmm

    After eating, we debated our initial plan to go to the local hot springs. It was getting late, and Stanford Spokes had to leave in an hour or so to make the long drive back and meet their WS host. We decided it wasn’t worth paying like $30 for one hour of the springs, and head to a local park instead to chill and talk. We got a tour of their fancy cargo van that is actually capable and can fit sooo much stuff. I mean I’ve grown fond of our minivan, but it gets absolutely mogged by their van. They have a whole seat dedicated to their pillows… the world is truly unequal.

    Dinner + really checking out the Stanford van

    We got to the park and immediately started brainstorming what to do for like 5 minutes. Frisbee, football, volleyball, all the sports were thrown out there, immediately throwing away our initial priority of just hanging around. I don’t think “chilling” is in a lot of our vocabularies, and with that we settled on toilet tag, suggested by Freya. Toilet tag is one of many variations of freeze tag, where when you’re tagged, you kneel with one knee up and another arm raised . To get untagged, someone must sit on your knee and push your arm down like a toilet flush. I think it’s so interesting that everyone has different versions of freeze tag they’ve played as a kid, yet the basic principle of the game is so universal. 

    We chose our taggers and locked in. I was returned to 5th grade, running barefoot at full speed away from reaching hands and watching the chaos unfold between all of us. It was such a goofy sight but so much fun. In everyday life, when else do you get to watch others sprint as fast as they can? It was also surprisingly tiring, and all of us took a couple of minutes of deep breaths afterwards and made jokes about how we’re literally biking across the country, but this was some of the hardest things we’ve done. My personal highlight was faking Drew out while standing still, feeling like I just performed a crazy move in the NFL instead of a random park in Glenwood Springs.

    Feeling tired, we decided to pivot to a slightly less demanding activity — volleyball. We used a fence as our net and split into 2 groups: Aarushi, Tatiana, Drew, Jack, Logan, Freya vs Nate, Nunu, Carmen, Ian, Paisley, and I. If you know us, you know one side is extremely disadvantaged height-wise relative to the other team. Luckily, we had the powerhouse of Nate, Nunu, and Ian (all people with some level of volleyball experience) to carry us, while Carmen, Paisley, and I supported as much as we could. Ian in particular was a libero in high school, so he performed some INCREDIBLE saves that kept us afloat and even leading for quite a bit. Apparently I’m decent at tossing the ball in? We ended up losing in a close battle and graciously shook hands through the fence.

    Fence volleyball with the beautiful setting sun!

    With it getting dark quickly, the Stanford folks had to unfortunately get moving. We took our final photos together and said our goodbyes, thinking about how impactful our meetup was despite how short it was relative to our trip. We’re two groups that are doing the same thing at the same time, and we got to share a space for just a couple of hours before setting off to continue the long journey. While many of us may not see each other again, it was special to do so (especially being the first groups in a couple of years). Thank you Stanford Spokes for making the effort and being so lovely! Nate was the saddest to see them go, joking about joining them so many times that I don’t think it’s just a joke to him…they definitely needed to check their trunk for stowaways.

    Imposing the jumping photo way of life (rather unsuccessfully)

    Once they left, we got in the car to drop off Tatiana’s grandpa Victor back at their hotel. However, during this ride, we floated the idea of still going to a hot springs since the next day was relatively short and we could afford a later night. We found a natural and public hot spring just a 10 minute drive away and decide to go, avoiding overpaying and being constrained to a private hot spring’s open hours. As we dropped off Victor, Drew took the opportunity to reunite with his one true love: Pepsi. Nate snuck these photos of this fascinating behavior, however, not without being noticed.

    We got there in the dark at around 9:30 pm, changing into our swimsuits under the protection of the night. It was a short walk there, and we found a couple of murky pools and found a nice one for ourselves. Right before getting in, there was a suspicious UTO (unidentified turd-like object) that Tatiana herocially removed for us. The water was perfectly warm and also muddy at the bottom, which took some getting used to but was comfortable. I did fish out mud from my swimsuit afterwards.

    The UTO
    Guess who parked after dark!!

    We sat in the pools, talking about everything and anything yet nothing at the same time. The night stretched on, we observed lighting flash in the distance, and we watched the clouds clear above us, taking the opportunity to do a bit of stargazing as well. We spoke in mostly in low tones, trying to preserve the tranquility of the environment, and took a couple minutes of silence. No photos were taken during this time since we were so in-the-moment, but I can only describe it as magical. When I reflect on this trip in 10 years, this will definitely be a night that stuck out.

    At about 12:40 am, we begrudgingly got out of the warm water and of courseee had to grab some food before getting to bed. Luckily for us, there was a McDonald’s open! Not so luckily for us, it closed at 1:00 am and our eta was 12:55 am. We rushed there, saw a McDonald’s worker outside (probably under the illusion no one would show up 5 minutes before closing at this hour) and saw the same worker run inside as soon as they saw us pull into the drive-thru. We were probably their worst nightmare: a van full of hungry, sulfur-smelling bikers with a big order ahead of them. 

    Our EXTREMELY pruned hands post hot springs
    McDonald’s hates to see us coming

    Finally, a couple burgers and fries later, we arrived back at our host Greg’s house and quietly got ready for bed. A much more active learning festival day than most, but it was full of coffee, new faces, adventure, and minimal biking. What more could you want on this trip? 😉

    See you soon,
    Caroline

  • Day 38: So… steak for dinner?

    Day 38: So… steak for dinner?

    Learning Festival in Lamar, CO — 0 mi, 0 ft

    If I had a nickel for every time I have woken up in a sleeping pad circle on the floor of a church, I would have two nickels! Honestly, it is less than I would have expected, considering how often we stay at churches and how much our team enjoys sleeping pad circles.

    For those who aren’t familiar, a sleeping pad circle is when we lay out our sleeping pads in a flower formation, with everyone’s heads facing the center and legs facing outwards. There is no functional use for this method, but it definitely makes our team happy and may have some aesthetic appeal. 

    We were all also pleasantly excited to sleep in for a little extra time, as we had a Learning Festival planned at the Lamar Community Building. For us, these Learning Festivals have become routine, especially since this would be our seventh, but I realize that we have not gone into great detail on our actual teaching or process for setting up these workshops, so I hope to shed some light on it in this blog.

    I am responsible for planning out the Learning Festivals for the summer. In the months leading up to Spokes, this involved tons of emailing with directors of libraries, jails, and community centers, providing rough dates that we thought we could host a Learning Festival in the city. When the hosts confirmed availability, we began to work with the route team to finalize the days we would arrive in each city and lock in the date for the Learning Festival. Especially due to changing weekend dates, holidays, routes, and reading periods, it is virtually impossible to keep all of the same festival locations year-to-year, so this year we had to schedule two new locations. Once the locations had all been determined, we worked with each host to determine the infrastructure they have to host us, the food they are able to provide the students, the marketing support they need from our team, the registration forms for students, and the photo release for all participants. As you can imagine, this takes hundreds of emails to coordinate.

    Leading up to this Learning Festival, I was personally a little bit worried, as it would be our first time leading a Learning Festival at the Community Building (we had led a Learning Festival in the local library a few years ago, but the library was on its reading period and was unavailable to host us). The director was extremely communicative, but there were no student registrations until two days before. I had worried that we would not be able to get enough students to host the workshop, but when I checked the registration form on the morning of the workshop, there were 30 students coming, ranging from 4 to 15 years old! We were ready to roll 🙂 

    To no one’s great surprise, our first order of business was visiting a coffee shop with delicious paninis and a billion coffee flavors. Did it make us a little late to our Learning Festival setup time? Yes. Was it delicious and worth it? Yes. Did we finish all our setup and start the Learning Festival on time anyway? Also, yes!!

    Once we arrived at the Community Building, the Director, Ethan Settles, was beyond helpful in getting the tables and chairs set up for the workshops. We ended up settling on two rooms with two workshops being run simultaneously in each. We decided that Aarushi and Carmen’s chem/bio workshop would split the room with my electronics workshop, and Nate and Drew’s electromagnetism workshop would split the room with Nunu and Caroline’s design workshop. We transport all of our Learning Festival gear in two huge grey bins that Nunu was magically able to arrange, allowing us to stay organized from Learning Festival to Learning Festival. Shoutout “orga{nunu}zation.”

    When the kids arrived, we performed roll call and then began with our now tradition of playing Rock, Paper, Scissors, Rockstar (shoutout to my awesome boyfriend, Noah, for the idea of having the losers of each match join the winner’s “fanbase,” leading to significantly more hype, hence the name, Rockstar). All of us tensed in suspense, waiting to see if Caroline would win the tournament for the THIRD time and crush the hearts, souls, and minds of 30 students.

    To everyone’s great relief, the students were spared, and Caroline suffered her first and greatest defeat at the hands of the one and only Nathan Mustafa. For a bit, Nate kept winning, and we worried that the curse was passed on and that he would become the next RPS terrorizer of students, but alas, he was defeated, and a student won the tournament.

    When we started the Learning Festival, we split the kids into four age groups, and I took one of the older groups first. My workshop centers around understanding circuits and powering components with electricity. The goal is for each student to build their own “magic circuit” using copper tape on a piece of decorated cardboard, where rotation of the circuit causes the circuit to be open or closed. This is done through a tilt switch, which connects the circuit when it is vertical and then opens the circuit when it is upside down. 

    It is always so fascinating to see how the different age groups approach my circuits workshop. The end result for the 5-year-olds is almost identical to the end result for the 15-year-olds, aside from the 15-year-olds implementing an additional buzz motor in their circuit. With the older kids, we dove into the chemical reactions that drive a Lithium-Ion battery, how electrons relate to electricity, how a diode works, and what terms like current and voltage mean. Both of the older groups demonstrated immense problem solving and creativity, creating unique circuit designs and figuring out how to attach the motors to the circuits themselves to make them buzz. It is always quite interesting to notice the level of understanding and knowledge that students have as they age through the school system, with words like electron and ion becoming understandable. Even the two older groups, which was just mostly a split between 6th/7th graders and 8th/9th graders, have noticeable splits in their characters, attention spans, interests, and interactions with the material.

    After teaching both older groups, we had our pizza lunch break, aided by the great serendipity that the community building has a gym. This meant that the students could shoot hoops and play a game of Knockout with Drew, even if it meant that some of the five-year-olds physically could not toss the ball high enough to make it into the hoop. Other, less basketball inclined students, played some of the puzzles that Aarushi had brought back from India during our joint visit to the Center for Creative Learning at IIT Gandhinagar. Nunu also made a quick pit stop at McDonald’s to get our thirsty team some cheap fountain drinks.

    We also got to chat with some of the parents during lunchtime, who shared their perspectives on the Colorado education system. They described the new schedule, where many students in southeastern Colorado go to school for 4 days a week, rather than 5. Though this eases the financial constraints on the school systems, it adds burdens to the parents, who must manage their work and childcare. 

    After lunch, I switched to teaching the younger students, and with this came a complete vibe shift. Suddenly, our group was holding hands to explain how electricity flowed through a circuit, I was painstakingly helping many students with the copper tape because they had not yet developed the required finger dexterity, and half of our group (including me) was doing cartwheels. The last one had no educational purpose, but I think it did keep the kids engaged!

    One of my favorite things to do with the little kids is to have them “trick” one of the other mentors whenever they finish their projects. They excitedly ran over to Aarushi, with their circuits upside down, lamenting that their projects weren’t working. And then BAM!! They flip it right side up, turning on their circuits, and Aarushi feigns great excitement that their circuit is magically working! Thank you, Aarushi and other teammates, for always going along with the tricks and letting the younger kids feel the magic.

    With the younger groups, we tend to stay at a higher level on the project. We discuss batteries, lights, motors, and electricity, with more exploration-based activities rather than teaching content. I always use “challenges” to let the students identify how components work rather than lecturing on each one. For example, to understand the LEDs, I hand each student an LED and a battery and challenge them to turn on the LED without any explanation. Usually, it takes a bit of time for the first student to figure it out, and quickly, the rest of the group follows. This strategy naturally lets the students figure out that the LED only works in one direction, prompting discussion on the positive and negative terminals of a battery. I do a similar challenge with the tilt sensor and motor, allowing the students to compete and identify their purpose.

    What strikes me the most is that every single student, regardless of age, completes my workshop and finds something new to learn. I think that often, I notice younger children are underestimated in what they can accomplish. Though I do see them struggle with physical dexterity, I believe that the amount of information that a student can understand is only limited by my ability to simplify and explain it.

    After teaching all four groups comes the dreaded end of the day: goodbyes and cleanup. The students and parents are always extremely sweet at the end of the day, giving us hugs and saying thank you for our teaching. It makes me happy to see the students excitedly demonstrate their projects to their parents and reminds me of how proud they must also feel to have accomplished multiple projects in a day. 

    In terms of cleanup, my workshop is usually a quick ordeal, but Aarushi and Carmen have to clean up the materials from two workshops, including the Monster Genome project, which they run for the younger groups and has small scraps of felt EVERYWHERE, as well as the Iodine Clock project, which has individual beakers of chemicals for every student. Their cleanup is far more intensive, so the whole team locked in to help them finish up.

    On our way out, we passed our deepest gratitude to Ethan for his help in setting up the wonderful Learning Festival and for feeding the kids pizza. We also noticed a huge sign on the rotating marketing TV that said there would be Zumba that evening at 6 pm!! If you know me outside of Spokes, you know that Zumba is right up my alley. Of course, I immediately started rallying the team to join Zumba that evening, and quickly got Aarushi on board.

    At this point, it was still only 4 pm, so our team separated to take care of some individual tasks. Carmen and Drew went on an adventure to do the laundry and cut off the the pesky bike lock that was wrapped up around Aarushi’s tire, Caroline spent some time blogging and working on finances, Aarushi contacted upcoming hosts to confirm our stay, Nunu put in our next Amazon order for team supplies, Nate spent time blogging and going to the gym, and I began to call restaurants for dinner for that night.

    This entire trip, every time I call a restaurant to get us a meal, Nate makes a joke about having steak donated to us. Though he is fully being silly, I decided to take him up on this challenge. I called the local steakhouse, and they told us that they would happily give $20 in credit per person for our meal! The team was ecstatic, and with this exciting upcoming dinner in mind, Aarushi and I rallied Nunu, and the three of us set out to Zumba.

    The Zumba class was extremely lit even if the three of us were terrible, and we enjoyed getting to move our bodies in a new way that doesn’t involve the same repetitive leg motion for 10 hours a day. Many comments were exchanged regarding our perceived cardio fitness, and how we all felt that it was easier than expected. To be frank, the targeted audience of the class was also a few decades older than us, so I am not sure if the credit goes to our physical fitness or to the content itself. See the video below for Aarushi’s demonstration of striking a few poses.

    We were extremely inspired during the class by a mother with her 11 month old daughter, who joined halfway and eagerly passed her baby from hip to hip while hitting the dance moves with the group. Huge kudos to her and her extremely adorable baby, who had a smile and giggled the entire time. The full rainbow outside really helped lock in the awesomeness of the day 🙂

    After Zumba, we rode our bikes back to the wonderful church hosting us and were given a huge surprise: Aarushi’s tire was newly cable-free!! 

    As it turns out, the fire department could not help Drew and Carmen due to “liability,” but JJ at the local Tractor Supply was happy to lend our team a couple of wire cutters.

    I also noticed that our car was completely bare, with no bike rack or camping top, which made our car nearly unrecognizable.

    With the dilemma resolved, our team finally changed and went to our long-awaited meal at the steakhouse. Nunu, Aarushi, and I spent a copious amount of time negotiating a 3-way split of 3 meals (to the bemusement and possibly slight annoyance of the team, who watched us go back and forth endlessly until we all compromised a little and settled on a Steak Diane dish, a BBQ Mac and Cheese, and a Salmon plate). Personally, I think sharing food is 100% optimal, as you get to try a little bit of everything rather than having to only pick one meal. Some of our teammates may not agree…

    After filling our bellies, we headed back to the church and began our night routine of shower line and route preparation for the next day. Nate decided to play a prank of sorts on Aarushi, having her enter the subpar-smelling men’s bathroom to get the bath supplies (the women’s was painted pink and smelled like Vanilla), causing gagging from Aarushi and a LOT of laughter from Nate. I wasn’t there, but I heard it was pretty funny!

    Finally, it was time for the team to turn in, excited for a full day of biking to come.

    With lots of Learning Festival love,

    Tatiana ❤

  • Day 30: a glimpse of the outside world

    Day 30: a glimpse of the outside world

    Learning Festival in Kansas City, MO — 0 mi, 0 ft

    Today everyone in the world woke up at 8am excited to attend our learning festival in Kansas City. I’m not sure how the rest of the world handled their excitement in the morning, but I managed it by going back to bed for 20 minutes before leaving from the hotel, kindly provided to us by aSTEAM Village (the program hosting our learning festival), with the team at 8:45. Along the way we munched on some breakfast burritos from a nearby cafe that Aarushi picked up for us. 

    The rest of the world must’ve been too overwhelmed by their excitement to make it to the learning festival because, after arriving and setting up, we had 15 students in attendance. We’re used to having somewhere around 60-80 students and, while we certainly always want to be able to teach as many kids as logistically possible, having fewer students also means we can work more directly one-on-one with the students. I also personally enjoy making our workshop more of a conversation which I feel works best with fewer students. 

    To start off our learning festival, Tatiana led the students through an introduction circle and then a rock-paper-scissors (RPS) tournament. I don’t know what they put in Caroline’s burrito this morning, but she was feeling particularly merciless as she once again annihilated the playing field without an ounce of guilt towards the many RPS careers she was prematurely ending.

    So young, so much hope, gone in an instant. 

    With Caroline’s RPS rage sedated, we continued with our regularly scheduled workshops. Drew and I teach a workshop where the students build a brushless electrical motor using an electromagnet, circuit board, magnets, and legos. Along the way, we talk about magnets, what makes materials magnetic, the Earth’s magnetic field, Lenz’s Law, and solenoids. It’s pretty cool stuff 😎

    Students intently learning about electric motors, and their unconcealable disappointment when Nunu distracted them from the riveting lesson by taking a picture.

    The other workshops we ran at this LF were: Carmen and Aarushi’s chemistry workshop where students mix and run an iodine clock chemical reaction; Nunu and Caroline’s design and architecture workshop where students work on 2D to 3D designing and visualizing; and Tatiana’s circuit workshop where student’s build a circuit that senses motion to turn on a light. A big shoutout to Amelia Alinkil for her help in developing the ideas for our circuits workshop! Amelia is one of the founding members of Yuva Impact and we are very grateful for the non-profit’s support of our mission.

    The lessons went by very smoothly by our standards and just like that the festival was over. During the LF, we got to take a peak at one of the student’s Iron Man helmet that they were building, complete with lights, a speaker, and a lithium battery of questionable safety with two open wires dangling out. 

    After the workshop, we had agreed to do a “mini-LF” for a student that wasn’t able to make it for the original LF that we were told was very talented and interested in the LF. We spent an hour running through Aarushi + Carmen’s chemistry workshop and then Drew and I ran through our workshop. 

    The student’s parents kindly offered to take the team out to dinner at a sushi place after wrapping up the mini-LF. Unfortunately, the team also had accumulated 3 days worth of dirty clothes from the ride into KC + rest day + learning festival – things were getting dire to say the least. Since we already needed to head to a laundromat to do laundry, we decided we should also finally wash the stinky sleeping bags and tents while we were there. 

    Nunu and I volunteered to do the laundry (sending one person alone to do laundry while everyone else ate sushi felt a little cruel), so we quickly drove back to the hotel to grab our laundry and then drove to drop off the 5 others at the restaurant for dinner at 5:30. While dropping them off, we noticed a lot of soccer fans for team Mexico walking around – this will be relevant later.

    Nunu and I then drove off to begin our laundry adventure at a nearby laundromat. We got straight to business claiming three washing machines: one for our clothes and two for the sleeping bags and tents. 

    After waiting for ~30 minutes (and paying $8.50 per machine ouch) we began moving everything over to the dryers. As we were taking the tents out though, water flooded out of the tents into the walkway creating a huge river of water from the washers to the dryers. Our commotion must’ve got the attention of the laundromat owner because she came over and immediately told us that we wouldn’t be able to dry our tents with any heat because they would melt inside the dryers and that we couldn’t put them into the dryer soaking wet because that would ruin the dryer. 

    We decided to take the tents outside to dry on some handrails, per the laundromat owner’s suggestion. We pretty quickly realized this wasn’t gonna be very helpful since it would take forever to dry, and we also didn’t want to leave the tents hanging outside because we wanted to go grab dinner ourselves while the dryers ran. So we decided to shake out the water from the tents so they weren’t dripping wet, and then take them in to run in the dryer on “No Heat”. 

    Immeasurable disappointment after our laundry did not go as planned.

    With our laundry maybe becoming dry, we decided to reward ourselves for our maybe hard work by going to grab dinner in the same area we dropped the rest of the team off for dinner since we wanted to see if we could catch some “World Cup Vibes”. Kansas City is the only city along our route hosting games for the World Cup so this was our way of trying to remind ourselves about what the outside world was like. 

    When we got to the area, called the Kansas City Power and Light District, we found a lot of eager (mostly team Mexico) fans ready to watch the Mexico vs Ecuador round of 32 game starting in ~1 hour. Unfortunately, we also found a huge line of said fans waiting to get into the watch party area. 

    If you look closely at the picture on the right to the right of the brick building, you can see the rest of the team standing above the line contemplating getting in line. We only realized my picture included them after this blog was already posted.

    With our laundry only running for an hour, we decided to forgo watching the game to just grab food and head back for the laundry. We spotted Joe’s BBQ, a well-known BBQ place in KC, and decided to eat there since who knows when you’ll next get to enjoy some great BBQ between now and California. 

    We headed inside to a nearly entirely empty restaurant, and were initially seated in some back corner. While walking in though, I noticed that there were some large windows that looked out to the crowd of fans at the watch party, and asked if we could be moved there so we could at least visually partake in the “World Cup Vibe”.

    As we were moving to a table by the windows, we realized the window was actually a window to an outdoor patio… right next to the huge crowd of fans waiting for the game to start. We immediately asked to be moved again and ended up seated outside in the super nice patio, with only a tiny fence separating us from the huge crowd of fans. We later realized that the fence had a gap in it where one could walk straight into the crowd. This was a little concerning since one could get into the crowd without going through any of the metal detectors/security that the rest of the crowd had to go through, but ignoring that this was super lucky for us.

    World Cup Vibes acquired

    We spent the next hour-ish eating the best BBQ we’ve had on this trip, and maybe my favorite meal of the trip so far, while an MC on stage hyped up the already incredibly hyped crowd. 

    Ribs, toast, mac n’ cheese, a brisket sandwich, and fries 🤤

    I would think that, in theory, Kansas City and the group running the watch party should be an impartial 3rd party to the Mexico-Ecuador game, however, that was very much not the case. The MCs and the entire watch party crowd was incredibly skewed towards Mexico. The MCs spent a good 75% of the pre-match time leading the crowd through “Viva Mexico”, “Mexico! Mexico! …”, and “¿Quien Gana? ¡Mexico!” (“Who’s going to win? Mexico”) chants. At some point, the MCs even brought up a fan from the crowd with a HUGE Mexico flag and had him wave it in front of the crowd. TBH, I feel bad for any Ecuador fans in the crowd. 

    They weren’t even trying to pretend to be impartial.

    Besides that, they also had a live band and a DJ playing music that the crowd really enjoyed dancing to. We also got to see several cool outfits including various Aztec-related costumes and someone dressed as El Chapulin Colorado1. 

    The most fun part was looking out and seeing people being literally thrown up into the air every couple of seconds across the crowd, which is apparently very common in Mexican soccer culture. 

    Nunu is lucky the rest of the team wasn’t there, otherwise we would’ve had her flying to the moon. 

    Speaking of the rest of the team, seeing how great the vibes were here, we decided we should tell the rest of the team to come check out the game after they finished dinner. When we checked their locations though, they were already back at the hotel! 

    Turns out they had been in line to get in at the same time that Nunu and I walked into Joe’s, and even saw us walk into Joe’s. They ended up deciding the line was too long though and went home. 

    Anyways, we had finished our food and spent a bit of time in the crowd, and decided we should actually head back to finish our laundry before we got a fine for our 1hr parking that had just expired. 

    We got to the laundromat at 8:30, picked up the clothes, rolled up all 7 sleeping bags, and folded our 3 tents. Since our tents had been spinning on “No Heat” this whole time, they were, unsurprisingly, still damp. We decided to put them back to dry for a bit longer while we rolled up the sleeping bags. Without realizing though, we put them back to dry at “Medium Heat” (recall that the laundromat owner said that this would melt them IMMEDIATELY). By the time we realized this, it was too late… our tents had become… perfectly dry :/ Yea I don’t know why we got fearmongered into not drying our tents with heat but whatever that’s life. 

    We left the laundromat at 9:15 (and also took a peek at the score of the soccer game: 2-0 Mexico). 

    When we got back to the hotel, we painfully realized that the car also needed to be packed before our early departure tomorrow at daybreak. Nunu and I used two luggage bags to chaotically bring our minivan’s worth of gear down from our rooms upstairs (only nearly tipping over the carts a few times) and packed everything into the car. By 10:10, the minivan was ready for tomorrow’s adventure. 

    Not sure who let these hooligans into this nice hotel.

    Afterwards, I spent some time cleaning and lubing my bike chain, as well as fixing (?) my front brake which had been acting up lately. 

    After finishing up and getting ready for bed, I got under the covers at 11:00pm sharp. Perfect, a whole 5 hours of sleep before our 4am wakeup tomorrow! I then went to bed. I then got back up at 11:04pm to see who had won the Mexico vs. Ecuador game. Mexico 2-0, nice. 

    – Nate

  • Day 20: we the people

    Day 20: we the people

    Learning Festival in Bowling Green, KY — 0 mi, 0 ft

    Before starting this trip, I, for some reason, had this feeling that Bowling Green would be a singular experience. Whether it was from last year’s team hinting at some suspicious activity (I really don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t at me) or going on about the amazing Airbnbs (plural) we got to stay in, I was subconsciously preparing for, well, something.

    That something, I’ve discovered, is the intensely wide variety of people that live here, eccentric people with many stories to tell.

    Our learning festival was held at the WKU Innovation Campus, a “hub” for entrepreneurship in Kentucky. 

    At the beginning of the festival, we played an icebreaker game of rock, paper, scissors, the tournament version. Basically you play with the person next to you until you’re out and until there’s one pairing left. All of us decided to play as well, setting a good example and all. However, since Caroline is apparently the rock, paper, scissors god, we all watched from the sidelines as she crushed every last one of her opponents (eight year olds) as she made her way to the very middle of the circle as one of the last two standing. 

    At last it was 1 v. 1.

    Caroline facing off her opponent

    And then Caroline obliterated the poor girl.

    Post win reaction (it was really funny, maybe not to Caroline)

    This was our largest learning festival to date, with almost 100 kids. It could have been far more overwhelming if the kids in each group of 25 were on the whole younger, but for this one they ranged from third grade to high school. It was actually really optimal, at least for Aarushi and I. 

    Our mindset as a team has been to prioritize the kids having fun over developing a really good grasp on the fundamental concepts we teach. This means that the youngest kids, kindergarten age, love to craft felt monsters but more loosely understand the connection to genetics.

    With this older group, they were really getting into the science behind the activity, asking good questions and being more intentional with their choice of traits: blue or brown eyes? Horn or no horn? Triangle or square nose? Which trait is dominant versus recessive? I hadn’t seen this kind of engagement before, and it inspired me to rework our workshop, to see if we can get the even younger ones to ask similar questions.

    Additionally, we’ve all noticed that Kentucky kids are a unique breed. For both learning festivals in the state, they were advanced for their grade level and all had some special interest that they loved and devoted a lot of brain power to learning. I figure that something about this environment filters and attracts these kids to their local educational summer camps. Some were so incredibly dedicated that their families drove several hours to these learning festivals. And some even stayed in hotels.

    At the end of the festival, we got a picture with our wonderful hosts and admin at WKU who helped make it all happen.

    We then went out for our ritual post-LF ice cream, but without Aarushi, who had to pick up her bike from the bike shop. After her crash, all her bike fit measurements were thrown off, and her derailleur had started creaking almost as loudly as our knees. Shout out to Howard’s bike shop, who re-measured and realigned everything on her bike for free!

    Half of us left the town square to rot at our beautiful Airbnb, while Tatiana and Aarushi stayed to work on their blogs.

    We attempted to play mini Catan, but determined it was too mini to play, before Nate and Nunu took Caroline to the emergency room to get her third (technically eighth) rabies shot. Drew and I stayed back, and decided to make use of our free time by biking to Zaxby’s. Nate and Nunu eventually abandoned Caroline to wait alone, and met up with us.

    Nunu and I have always been strong Cane’s supporters. But I had heard from my friend Hillary, who’s from the south, that Zaxby’s is far superior to Cane’s, and so I was willing to test her theory. After having the Zaxby’s equivalent of the Cane’s three finger combo, I can attest, hand to my heart, that Cane’s can never be topped. The chicken is juicer, breading crunchier, the toast thicker, and the sauce more balanced. It’s just peak. Sorry Hillary, and sorry Drew.

    Nunu took it to the next level, since after Zaxby’s, her and Nate went to Cane’s directly after to do a taste test. In her words, “the bread is better, the chicken is better, and the sauce is better, the only three ingredients any meal has.” I rest my case.

    Nate’s back getting bigger from all the toast

    Drew and I then decided to bike downtown, because what else did we have to do with our time? We still had a glorious several hours to spend before waking up for our biking day tomorrow. We sped back to the town square we were at earlier, went around the perimeter for a bit before we ran into the other half of our team still writing their blogs at a coffee shop. We hung out for a bit before the shop closed and the staff kicked us off the patio. Aarushi still had her bike with her from the bike shop, and so the three of us were about to head back to the Airbnb until we remembered that it was Saturday evening in downtown Bowling Green.

    This is apparently when all the fun and funky people of Bowling Green come out of hiding.

    I had Drew take a picture to commemorate the moment, and he surpassed all of my expectations. 

    Drew’s fire photo

    I mean it’s so good it should be on the cover of some magazine advertising the city.

    Drew and I biked around for a bit before running into one of the kids we taught at our learning festival earlier that day. We were still in our matching shirts, biking all over town, looking like the goofy nerds we are. Maybe they recognized us because of it, but I felt as if I spotted a celebrity in them. It was proof that these kids had lives embedded within these towns we are briefly passing by. It made it surprisingly real.

    A few minutes later, after we were coming around for a second lap of the square, I saw a man with what looked like a small dog running around in the middle of the street. As I got closer I realized it was a cockatoo. This man had a bird on a leash and was taking it on walks in the middle of the city.

    Naturally, we stopped him to ask about the bird, to which he said it only liked girls, and to which Drew looked at me like I had to be the one to make the sacrifice. The man held the bird out and it slowly climbed on my finger, one talon at a time. With a surprising change of pace it then ran up my arm until it was on my shoulder. 

    Armed with amazing photos of me and the cockatoo, Drew and I went to go find Aarushi and Tatiana, who apparently had been talking with this motocross racer. He and some friends were taking their casual bikes out for a ride, and stopped at the square long enough to show us videos of him racing.

    Then the bird man came around to where the bikers were, and both Aarushi and Tatiana got to hold the bird. We then discovered it could dance to 2000s music. 

    We continued our walk around the square in our matching shirts and with our bikes, to run into a group of teenagers who asked about why we’re all twinning. Someone gave them the “We’re a group of 7 MIT students…” spiel and then they dabbed us up one by one. 

    These random encounters all happened within 20 minutes. Bowling Green on a Saturday night is kinda lit.

    Sticking to our original intention of exploring the city, Drew, Aarushi, and I biked back but took a scenic route, stopping at whatever we felt like seeing, namely a church and a rainbow fountain. The fountain was especially fun. Water shot up at random intervals, and Drew had the genius idea that we should bike through it and try not to get wet. We were surprisingly successful.

    Reliving my imagined childhood
    Biking through the fountain

    We agreed that we felt like bored teenagers biking around their small hometown, keeping themselves entertained by doing random sidequests, and occasionally being a public nuisance.

    In keeping with this slightly chaotic vibe of the night, Aarushi and I decided we were going to bake. So at 10 pm we drove to the nearest store and got ingredients to make brownies. We did, after all, have access to an amazing kitchen that we only had to share with each other. I’d never thought to put fruit in brownies before, but blueberry brownies are honestly gas. The best thing I might have ever eaten. 

    Before
    After

    Caroline came down from her Airbnb to join our midnight feast. Drew came as well, although only for the Nannies in Ibiza reality show we were watching, not for the food because of course he doesn’t like chocolate.

    After the brownie had been picked at for about an hour, and the nannies sufficiently humiliated by their narcissistic, filthy rich bosses, Drew, Aarushi, and I decided that instead of getting good sleep before our 87 mile day tomorrow, we’d stay up for an extra few hours yapping about everything and nothing. It was one of those conversations that you don’t want to end, where you slowly stand up, talk for 10 minutes more, move to the stairs, another 5 minutes, loiter at the top of the stairs, another 10 minutes, and eventually realize how ridiculous you are being.

    I, at least, was reluctant to leave our gorgeous Airbnb and give up this rare free time I had over to sleep. It was exactly 2:06 am when we finally did so.

    I regret nothing. It was a wonderful night.

    Bowling Green, you, and all of your delightfully funky people will be missed.

    With love,

    Carmen

  • Day 14: Where do we go from here?

    Day 14: Where do we go from here?

    Learning Festival in Hazard, KY — 0 mi, 0 ft

    My eyelids peel slowly open. 

    I hear a high-pitched voice coming from the door. I sit up in my bed and check the time– It reads 7:43am

    Is she out of her mind??

    Recently, Tatiana has self assigned herself the task of waking up the whole team. Last night, the team agreed to wake up at 7:45 am. It’s not often you sleep on a real bed during spokes, and I was determined to make use of every second of sleep allocated to me while being able to enjoy such a luxury.

    The door creeks open. 

    Tatiana is greeted by a haunting sight- the nastiest side eyes Nate and I could brandish

    Her face, previously having portrayed a sense of optimism only a so-called “morning person” could, is visibly overtaken by fear.

    She apologizes and closes the door.

    As she turns away, I spot her phone in hand, wretched “wakeup music”- as she calls it- one play button away from ruining my morning.

    It never did play, as it usually does, and I managed to sleep later than I have all summer- till 8:20 am. 

    Hindsight is always 20/20, and so I do appreciate Tatiana for taking on a job so dangerous, it gives even the most elite warfighters nightmares– waking up a team of grumpy, sleep-deprived cyclists.

    Today, we taught at the Challenger Learning Center in Hazard, Kentucky. It was a great day of teaching, and I am especially grateful to the center’s assistant director, Charles, for, well, a lot of things,

    • Driving 4 hours to help us transport team members after “the incident” (read Carmen’s Day 13 Blog)
    • Coordinating a very structured learning festival and allowing us to reach incredibly talented kids in the region.
    • Providing us with meals and a fantastic place to sleep.
    • Being incredibly friendly and passionate about creating STEM opportunities for kids in rural Kentucky.

    … to name a few.

    The festival followed a pretty standard format, albeit with an particularly talented group of kids, many of whom were comfortable working with topics beyond their grade level. 

     Because we work with so many different ages, Nate and I will usually adapt our learning festival based off of their responses to the first few questions. We always begin by asking kids, “What is a magnet?” This question is answerable by kids of every age; however, the responses allow us to probe what depth of discussion is appropriate. The youngest kids may just say, “It sticks to metals” while the older kids may discuss polarity or distribution of charges within a metal. 

    Today we were able to push much further than usual into using our motors to understand how a magnetic field is produced by a solenoid, how this relates to the frequency of oscillation in our square wave generator, and why this allows us to spin the magnetic rotor. 

    I particularly enjoyed getting to meet and talk with kids at the festival today. One student, Connor, and I talked about current happenings in the aerospace industry, I’m studying aerospace engineering and I love having the opportunity to nerd out about rockets and current advances in technology. I really feel like I’m looking in a mirror sometimes at the learning festivals.

    There’s only so many types of nerdy little boys: Dinosaur kids, car kids, train kids, plane/rocket kids, etc. As an aspiring aerospace engineer, it feels apparent to me that, compared to the other archetypes, the plane/rocket kids almost never really grow out of their nerd phase… and this makes me really happy. I love meeting kids that share my belief that the coolest thing humans can do is build things that allow us to go farther and faster than ever before.

    After the learning festival, we got blizzards from Dairy Queen.

    Charles brought us dinner from Applebees.

    It was time to make some heavy decisions. One aspect of Spokes that people likely don’t consider is that we are very political. Not in the sense that we take a stance on societal issues, but rather that, within our team, there’s a lot of difficult decisions and complex things that have to be sorted out to give us the best chance of accomplishing our goals for the summer. It’s kind of like playing the really old The Oregon Trail video game, except it’s real life and we all have to work together to decide what is best for our team.

    Yesterday, Caroline was bitten by a dog. This region of the Kentucky is notorious for having dangerous dogs, and any route we take to get to our destination tomorrow will take us through places that will certainly result in repeated dog encounters. Understandably, the majority of our team was not particularly in favor of biking tomorrow on the basis of safety. However, I, along with some others expressed a desire to bike despite the risk.

    The Spokes team meetings play out a bit like what I imagine the constitutional conventions were like: everybody expressing passionate ideas about what to do next, and the team ultimately arriving at some middle ground that pleases the most people. 

    We ultimately decided that we should prepare to facilitate allowing team members to make the decision for themselves whether or not they wanted to bike. Additionally, we should come up with a plan to SAG every biker out if necessary. After conducting a general survey of how people felt about this portion of the route given everything that had occurred in the past day, it became clear that we would need to acquire a new vehicle for a few days in order to accommodate everyone. Our van can accommodate 2 people; 3 people max if Nunu gets really creative with packing. We decided to rent a truck, which would allow us to carry five bikers and their bikes, incase we encounter a particularly dire situation.

    With that, the Spokes politics have concluded. Stay tuned to find out whether or not I survive biking through the pawpocalypse.

    – Drew

  • Day 11: Playlist Across America

    Day 11: Playlist Across America

    Learning Festival in Tazewell, VA — 0 mi, 0 ft

    We needed this nice calm day in the midst of the chaos of the days before and after (spoiler alert). Our team woke up in the huge church-house which we were inhabiting alone and LARPed* as a big happy TV-show-esque friend group who lives in a mansion together and has nothing to do but hang out as we leisurely cooked the most beautiful breakfast together, with Jack Johnson’s “Banana Pancakes” playing in the background. Our spread consisted of pancakes (plain, blueberry, and caramelized banana) and bacon (cooked by our very own Bacon Carmen!!!) and eggs (scrambled in an extremely generous amount of bacon grease) and buttermilk biscuits and grapes and strawberries and applies with creamy peanut butter and milk and orange juice and Fanta (for Drew) and Sprite (for Nate). We keep eating like we burn 4000 calories a day, except today was actually a teaching day!

    Today’s learning festival was at the United Methodist Church in Tazewell, Virginia. It’s a small learning festival in a small town, which means we could really feel the effect of our learning festival .Sometimes I forget that what to us just feels like a day of babbling about random chemistry concepts and asking kids to stop making balloons out of their nitrile gloves is actually a day that kids have been counting down the days for and remember for the rest of the year until Spokes 2027 comes. Just hearing these words from a few of our students made the entire day worth it for me, despite the significantly lower team energy and morale from yesterday. I have so much respect for all the teachers I’ve ever had; I have no idea how they find the will to keep showing up every day full of energy for just a couple intermittent words of thanks. Pretty sure this is called breadcrumbing, but wow it really works.

    • Carmen and I teach a workshop on chemistry through a cool color change iodine reaction for the older kids and a workshop on genetics through a design-your-own-monster-child crafting activity for the little kids

    Carmen and I teach a workshop on chemistry through a cool color change iodine reaction for the older kids and a workshop on genetics through a design-your-own-monster-child crafting activity for the little kids.

    At lunch, I did a grand show and tell of all my scrapes and bruises from yesterday’s tree crash with a tall tale about getting attacked by a grizzly bear as I biked on a road in between a mama bear and her cubs. Nobody questioned me, and I can’t figure out if it was because kids are so easy to lie to or if they just didn’t care enough to ask. Then, because it was such a hit at the last learning festival, we threw Nate and Drew under the bus again and told all the kids that they will race them in the church parking lot. Let it be known that they both actually tried and still lost, and let it be known that as they did their 20 punishment pushups there was a circle of kids dancing around them with Ls on their forehead to make sure Nate and Drew really understood that they were freaking losers. Then we took the kids inside where Drew played a beautiful piano rendition of Let it Go as the kids sang along, before finally resuming the workshop.

    I took my first nap of Spokes at the end of today, after ten days of nonstop action and ten nights of barely seven hours of sleep. Feeling restored, Tatana and I decided to join the ladies group of the United Methodist Church. Many of them had grown up in Tazewell and have been friends for fifty years now, supporting each other through the highest highs and lowest lows of life. They welcomed us very warmly, and we shared prayers for the people in our communities and blessings for everything we were feeling lucky about (mine was my team, retweeting nunu’s love letter). Although I’m not very religious, I’ve been starting to understand the human connection and structure and third space and love that church provides, and why no matter how small and secluded the towns we pass through are, we can always find a church to stop and take rest at. 

    This was the first time on this trip where we got to chat with and paint a picture of the lives of people in the towns we were passing through beyond our hosts. Since everybody has been sharing the real main reason why they joined Spokes on the blogs recently, I’ll let you all know that mine was exactly this: to get to know people across America whose life paths mine would not ordinarily cross with, to understand their stories and struggles and dreams. 

    In that vein, I’ve been collecting a playlist of Favorites Across America. I’ve tried to ask every stranger I’ve felt touched by on this trip what their all-time favorite song was as a kind of souvenir of the summer, and here are the results so far.

    • Great Gig in the Sky, Pink Floyd – Yasmin, Judge Faruqui’s intern who stuck by my side for a rough first learning festival
    • I Like Me Better, Lauv – Jen, who gave us plenty of advice we’ve been following after hosting years of Spokes teams
    • Miracles, Jefferson Starship – Jimmy Baker, an angel who fell from the sky at a gas station near Luray, Virginia and donated us a thousand dollars on the spot
    • On the Nature of Daylight, Max Ritcher – The one and only GOAT Pam
    • Truly Madly Deeply, Savage Garden and Time, Pink Floyd – Chrissie and Dirk, who took us on a river adventure and cooked us an incredible pasta bar complete with s’mores for dinner
    • Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan – Theresa, our current host in Tazewell with the warmest and kindest heart

    LINK: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1z0IdXR7hqCHqFuielSLBx?si=4c20a1a17a45496b

    Please note that I’m not a diligent enough person for this list to be comprehensive; there have been so many people that only in hindsight I’ve wished I had asked! 

    Sending lots of love to everyone we’ve met,

    Aarushi ❤

    GOODNIGHT !

    * Live Action Role Play, a favorite hobby of mine as introduced by my dear friend Ria Verma

  • Day 6: Kids and Bugs

    Day 6: Kids and Bugs

    Learning Festival in Fluvanna, VA — 0 mi, 0 ft

    Today I woke up to Tatiana’s usual wake up call of her muttering “good morning my cuties”, despite my best effort to try and get an extra 15 minutes of sleep. After having Pam’s generous breakfast of biscuits and grits, we decided to be proactive and get ahead of any mold that might grow in our camping gear, since we had last packed it up when it was still wet and delightfully mildewy. Except, like the intelligent MIT students we are, we unfolded and laid out our tents and sleeping pads on the forest floor, which of course is home to every type of bug you could possibly think of. Here’s a picture of one of the spiders we saw crawling on the hammock. The white abdomen must be a sack of about 100 million spider eggs, which will hatch and release thousands of carnivorous spider babies. So I doubt I will ever get in this hammock again.

    After letting the forest bugs clean and dry our camping gear, we headed to our second learning festival at the Fluvanna County Public Library. Most of us got another nap in on the ride over.

    Us crammed into our minivan before the learning festival, Caroline taking a much needed nap while Nunu captures the moment

    It was our first time doing a learning festival at this library, and I am so thankful to them and to Tatiana for making it happen. It went incredibly well, we were able to teach 70 kids from all over the county. I learned that this library is a local hotspot for families in the area to take their kids to for summer programs. Even though the Fluvanna County public library does not receive enough funding from the state to host these educational events, they are so dedicated that they’ve created an exceptionally successful nonprofit, Friends of Fluvanna, to raise money for them.

    Once the learning festival started, Aarushi and I got to teach the middle and high schoolers first, and so with them we ran our chemistry experiment lesson. All of the kids were well engaged, despite their half hearted threats to eat the chemicals and numerous questions about if they could create explosions. I must admit, this happens every time we do a chemistry workshop, regardless of the age or background of the kids. Blowing stuff up must simply be human nature.

    Ultimately their chaotic questions simply revealed their curiosity, as many of them wanted to go deeper and learn more about the specifics behind this reaction.

    This seemingly neverending curiosity was almost overshadowed by the excitement they felt over having pizza for lunch. On their lunch break, I was told, they decided it would be a good idea to race Drew and Nate, who of course lost and as punishment had to do pushups with the kids on their backs. They even decided to make nicknames for some of us, Best Guy Nate, Weird Guy Drew, and for me they chose Bacon Carmen. I couldn’t tell you why. Although now that I think about it, maybe it is because of my hair, it has a slightly bacon-y wave you could say.

    After lunch I was able to interact with the little kids, and help them make felt monsters for our other workshop on genetics. Often they would ask for help, whether it was for cutting or gluing eyes down, things that they could do themselves with the right encouragement. They taught me that that’s all they needed. Just someone to keep encouraging them to try.

    Monster Genome with kindergarteners, Drew and Nate showing the same little kids how to create EM motors
    Aarushi successfully convincing them to line up

    Initially, I had gone into the learning festival preparing to be exhausted by the end. But being able to watch as these kids cheer and shout as their experiment changes color, and leave our station with a unique googly-eyed monster created a feeling of inspiration mixed with nostalgia. They are all fascinated by a world they are trying to understand, and simultaneously I relived a time when I was just as mesmerized. It was rewarding to assist them in their reach for understanding, since it’s such an expansive time, filled with that good type of uncertainty, where you don’t know where you’re going but you have enough optimism to explore.

    After cleaning up thousands of tiny pieces of felt and parchment backings strewn across the floor, we celebrated our successful learning festival by getting ice cream at a local place. 

    Post learning festival, pre cleanup

    Let it be known that we are fans of team meetings. Team meetings everyday keeps the interteam fights away. The importance of communication and all that. So, as we ate our “spokes financed” ice cream, we had yet another team meeting. We decided that Drew and I would go pick up food for lunch, and then after, Caroline and Aarushi would go finish their blogs at the once place on the commune with wifi, and the rest of us would roll up and put away our now dry but bug infested tents. 

    It was both Drew and I’s first times at Wegman’s, and I’ve decided it’s the midwest’s version of Whole Foods, or maybe a fancy Fry’s. Sometimes you just want the cheap carcinogenic deli meat, and yet they won’t sell it to you. And they’ll always have a sushi chef in the seafood section making delicious looking sushi for Concord Market prices. Anyway we got enough food to feed a family lunch for a week, or us for two days. As a source of carbs, we got another pack of gummy worms and gummy bears, just ensuring all of us get cavities by the end of the trip. I’m sure none of you, dear readers, expected your generous donations would go toward our future dental expenses.

    When we got back to Pam’s house, we got in formation to spray ourselves with bug spray, inhaled the aerosols so no bugs would fly into our lungs, and started putting away the camping gear. There were a few high pitched screams here and there, but no one got bitten by a snake so I think it was rather successful. Luckily, I escaped halfway through to work on the bikes in the greenhouse and forced Nunu, Nate, and Tatiana to fold up the rest of the tents where the largest ants known to man decided to make a home in.

    Every night before a ride involves a huge operation, and honestly by now I think we have it pretty much down: pack up the car, shower line, dinner, etc. etc. And so that was how the rest of the night went. Apart from when Aarushi and Caroline were abandoned at the community center ~1 mile away, and instead of walking back in the pitch black over hilly gravel roads, waited for half an hour for one of us to pick them up. Very nobly but also rather guiltly, I drove them back, since I was part of the problem as well. 

    After a day of warning kids not to eat all the chemicals, I was ready for a delightful 8 hours of sleep. We’re all trying to be the goated spokes team and wake up early (6 am), to finish the ride before it gets too hot out. As a result, sometimes 8 hours is a little unattainable, especially when you get lost in writing a blog. So I think I’ll end it here for now.

    – Bacon Carmen 🥓

  • Day 1: Small Wins

    Day 1: Small Wins

    Learning Festival in Washington D.C. — 0 mi, 0 ft

    On day 1, MIT Spokes left on time. The weatherman in me is inclined to predict that this will never happen again, ever…  my forecast extends far beyond the usual ten days.

    Everything was packed on time; everybody was in the car on time; the driver (me) didn’t make a single wrong turn. Nate’s usual stench was absent, and we didn’t have to go back to the house to force him to put on deodorant. 

    This was a serious day though, and the tone of the blog will shift accordingly.

    Like in any high school setting: the students at the DC Youth Services Center, a rehabilitation facility for incarcerated youth, express a variety of interests. Again, like any high school, these interests have varying degrees of alignment with the material being taught.

    After the first of seven renditions of my festival throughout the day, in which students assemble their own electric motor out of legos, I was disappointed that only a minority of students were successful.

    The science teacher at the YSC explained to me, “Small wins are what we’re after.”

    My attitude changed. We can’t make every kid fall in love with with what we teach. But, if just a handful feel inspired by it, then we could’ve made a huge difference.

    There certainly were stars of the day, including an entire class of boys who managed to build a working motor (it’s pretty tricky to get working). Motivated by the spirit of competition with each other, they sat laser focused as they tinkered for the full hour. Some celebrated their functioning motor and teased their friends who weren’t as successful yet, ultimately leading to what i consider, a “big” win.

    I’m especially thankful for Judge Zia Fariqui for creating this opportunity. His direct investment in making learning opportunities available to incarcerated youth is unique. He even expended his entire staff of law interns to help us run the festivals, saving me from the impending doom of trying to manage an entire class on my own. 

    Back to goofy spokes plot.

    After the learning festival and a drive back to our host’s house, Aarushi and I went to Costco to stock up food for the next two days. I volunteered because I’m a picky eater and want a say in what we buy, We borrowed her uncle’s Costco card, which caused us trouble in the check-out lane. They’ve become very strict in enforcing the rule that the card owner be present. We told a sob story about how her “dad had a terminal illness and couldn’t leave the house to buy himself food.” This worked, somehow, and the food was acquired including Spokes most important necessity: dried mango.

    I’m getting sleepy (writing this after our first biking day) so I will TLDR the rest of the Day 0: we packed and went to sleep.

    Find out from Nate tomorrow how the first day went…

  • Day 69: Highway to the Danger Zone

    Day 69: Highway to the Danger Zone

    Learning Festival in Fallon, NV

    (This draft was made back in August, but I never published it, whoops!) (Published on 1/23/26)

    Highway to the … LAST LEARNING FESTIVAL! Today was a momentous day – the day of our last learning festival. It really feels like things are starting to wrap up. It’s like the first sign of the end. 

    I woke up on the couch of the Youth Center’s Teen room. Then I went to the Youth Center’s industrial kitchen to grab breakfast. It truly was the breakfast of champions. I had everything elementary school me could have wanted. Chocolate milk, prepackaged cereal bowls, even tangerine juice. After enjoying my long breakfast, I went to go help with setup for our workshop. 

    We had a pretty decent sized group this time around with 6 to 8 kids per group. But even though it was our 10th time doing this, it wasn’t easy. The kids were a rowdy bunch. They asked a lot of great questions, but they were also easily distracted, for example, by all of the balloons in the corner of the classroom. Fair. There were a couple of mishaps. One of our soda bottles cracked and sprayed a kid with baking soda and vinegar. I was also subsequently sprayed by said bottle. Later in the day a scuffle broke out between two of the kids. I broke them up. I was also pretty tired, so at some point I started dosing off during Sarah’s chemistry section. But we made it. After our learning festival wrapped up, I felt a little bit relieved. Teaching kids is tiring. 

    • CHARGE, MY SOLDIERS!

    Afterwards me, Sarah, Ramona and Greta hit up a cafe. Looking at the menu, I saw that you can choose up to 5 fruits to add to your smoothie. I like to get the most bang for my buck, so I got the crazy combo of mango, banana, blueberry, peach and pineapple. It was delicious. Felt rejuvenating. 

    We headed back and people went off to do their own things. Charles and Ruth were still working on the prints, so everyone gathered there. At some point we managed to find Ruth’s Scratch account and looked at all the games she made as a middle schooler. Ruth was very embarrassed. Afterwards me and Charles did something we had been wanting to do for a while – play two-player Flash games. Specifically, we played Gun Mayhem 2, a Co-op 2D platform shooter. Together we cleared the campaign of the game. And then we played Gun Game, a game mode where each time you kill your opponent you upgrade to a new weapon. And after you get through the 15th weapon, you win. We played 10 rounds and Charles won… none of them. 

    Afterwards I went to go take a quick nap and woke up when I saw a message in the group chat that Ruth was going to show us the completed The Breakfast Club trailer (see her blog). Needless to say, it was absolute cinema. Iconic. Afterwards Ruth showed us the video she had put together for her 2.009 (MechE capstone project class) team. I then went to sleep, knowing that tomorrow would be a long day. 

    Tune in next time for my final blog …and the final blog of Spokes!

  • Day 65: the late night zoomies club

    Day 65: the late night zoomies club

    Ely, NV -> Ely, NV, 0 mi, 0 ft

    0 miles today, so teaching! Somehow, even though this is the second to last learning festival we are doing, the thought of kids and lessons made me nervous.

    We woke up and left the high school for the library, only 15 or so minutes later than planned. The library, across the street from the middle school, had a nice lawn and a pond next to it. We made it there just when it opened and set up half in a conference room and half outside. This was definitely one of the smaller learning festivals with around 12? kids and one adult. I always like working with only a few kids in a group, since I can listen to them more and ask more questions, as opposed to making them do things. The adult was a new addition. A retired? special ED teacher, he wanted to join for the classes. This made me even more nervous – a teacher would be there observing me trying my best to teach. But it ended up being completely fine. It was actually really nice to talk to him about the lesson and teaching in general, especially special ED, afterwards. Unexpected, pleasant surprise. The kids were also great! I met multiple people, whose favourite subject in school is math and found out about some teenagers have been dirtbiking since 3 years old. Kind of crazy! (We had passed some tracks for dirtbikes when riding into Ely yesterday, so it checks out. Dirtbiking and mountain biking appear to be common hobbies here.) We ate lunch outside, it was a calm and sunny day.

    Afterwards, we let Charles and Ruth work on their 3d prints, which always take longer than expected and this time faced some extra difficulty due to a corrupted SD card (an ordeal that extended into the next day, respect to Charles for not giving up on any of the prints!) And we left Greta with them to blog. The rest were shuttled back to the high school. Joseph and Sarah went to do laundry (and checked out a cafe too I think?). I was going to join a meeting, but due to my poor mental math abilities, missed it by an hour. I did some other work, until the people left at the library got back. Me and Charles (who was awarding himself for finishing the learning festival by procrastinating on his blogs) joined Ishaq for the grocery store to pick up the ingredients for a Thai green curry and some other red type of curry. The grocery store was actually huge and very well stocked, we got all the ingredients, found a basil with all the roots and contemplated making it a Spokes pet and got a huge melon. Then we got to cooking. Ruth also made a crazy amount of sandwiches for everyone for the ride tomorrow.

    The scenery was amazing: us under the bobcats in the evening sun.

    Halfway through cooking Ruth, whose stressed about the unwritten blogs for both Charles and Greta, kicked Charles out of the cooking team and made him write his blog. (So he sat there and wrote his blog.) She also had an interaction with Greta about the blogs, but ended up not making her blog, since she had already dropped a blog that day. Anyways, the meal ended up absolutely delicious and we enjoyed it on the spot, sitting on the ground.

    While not blogging, Greta had gone on a run and returned absolutely ecstatic over the sunset and huge moon she had seen. So, after dinner, we too went to see the moon from the bleachers. I walked around the football field, a place I have never found myself on. It’s a pretty big field.

    Afterwards, even though there were definitely tasks to do, I got a bout of sleepyness, so I lay down on my mat and soon found it impossible to get back up. Not quite asleep, but not awake either, I vaguely remember there was some more evening shenanigans by the awake Spokies – sliding around the hall in socks, maybe a movie? They were suffering from the late night zoomies.

    I later was informed it was the recreation of the trailer for the 1985 movie The Breakfast Club. After seeing it in some part of the editing process, I can say it is a work of art. Keep an eye out for Ruth publishing it someplace. In the meantime, for a teaser, you should look at the original here (link in text: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGuWbVb1210)

    But yes, short blog this time, seeya in a week for one last biking trip blog encounter.