Thompson High Engineering Students Build Solutions Abroad

 ========= Old Image Removed =========Array
(
    [_wp_attached_file] => Array
        (
            [0] => 2018/08/Screen_Shot_2018-08-29_at_11.22.05_AM1-e1535560324410.png
        )

    [_wp_attachment_metadata] => Array
        (
            [0] => a:5:{s:5:"width";i:600;s:6:"height";i:339;s:4:"file";s:65:"2018/08/Screen_Shot_2018-08-29_at_11.22.05_AM1-e1535560324410.png";s:5:"sizes";a:6:{s:6:"medium";a:4:{s:4:"file";s:65:"Screen_Shot_2018-08-29_at_11.22.05_AM1-e1535560324410-336x190.png";s:5:"width";i:336;s:6:"height";i:190;s:9:"mime-type";s:9:"image/png";}s:9:"thumbnail";a:4:{s:4:"file";s:65:"Screen_Shot_2018-08-29_at_11.22.05_AM1-e1535560324410-140x140.png";s:5:"width";i:140;s:6:"height";i:140;s:9:"mime-type";s:9:"image/png";}s:9:"wbhm-icon";a:4:{s:4:"file";s:63:"Screen_Shot_2018-08-29_at_11.22.05_AM1-e1535560324410-80x80.png";s:5:"width";i:80;s:6:"height";i:80;s:9:"mime-type";s:9:"image/png";}s:18:"wbhm-featured-home";a:4:{s:4:"file";s:65:"Screen_Shot_2018-08-29_at_11.22.05_AM1-e1535560324410-550x311.png";s:5:"width";i:550;s:6:"height";i:311;s:9:"mime-type";s:9:"image/png";}s:22:"wbhm-featured-carousel";a:4:{s:4:"file";s:65:"Screen_Shot_2018-08-29_at_11.22.05_AM1-e1535560324410-470x265.png";s:5:"width";i:470;s:6:"height";i:265;s:9:"mime-type";s:9:"image/png";}s:14:"post-thumbnail";a:4:{s:4:"file";s:65:"Screen_Shot_2018-08-29_at_11.22.05_AM1-e1535560324410-125x125.png";s:5:"width";i:125;s:6:"height";i:125;s:9:"mime-type";s:9:"image/png";}}s:10:"image_meta";a:12:{s:8:"aperture";s:1:"0";s:6:"credit";s:0:"";s:6:"camera";s:0:"";s:7:"caption";s:0:"";s:17:"created_timestamp";s:1:"0";s:9:"copyright";s:0:"";s:12:"focal_length";s:1:"0";s:3:"iso";s:1:"0";s:13:"shutter_speed";s:1:"0";s:5:"title";s:0:"";s:11:"orientation";s:1:"0";s:8:"keywords";a:0:{}}}
        )

    [_wp_attachment_image_alt] => Array
        (
            [0] => red Bradley GT retrofitted with special batteries
        )

    [_media_credit] => Array
        (
            [0] => Source: Alexander Richey
        )

    [_navis_media_credit_org] => Array
        (
            [0] =>  WBHM
        )

    [_navis_media_can_distribute] => Array
        (
            [0] => 
        )

    [_wp_attachment_backup_sizes] => Array
        (
            [0] => a:9:{s:9:"full-orig";a:3:{s:5:"width";i:600;s:6:"height";i:804;s:4:"file";s:42:"Screen_Shot_2018-08-29_at_11.22.05_AM1.png";}s:14:"thumbnail-orig";a:4:{s:4:"file";s:50:"Screen_Shot_2018-08-29_at_11.22.05_AM1-140x140.png";s:5:"width";i:140;s:6:"height";i:140;s:9:"mime-type";s:9:"image/png";}s:11:"medium-orig";a:4:{s:4:"file";s:50:"Screen_Shot_2018-08-29_at_11.22.05_AM1-336x450.png";s:5:"width";i:336;s:6:"height";i:450;s:9:"mime-type";s:9:"image/png";}s:14:"wbhm-icon-orig";a:4:{s:4:"file";s:48:"Screen_Shot_2018-08-29_at_11.22.05_AM1-80x80.png";s:5:"width";i:80;s:6:"height";i:80;s:9:"mime-type";s:9:"image/png";}s:18:"wbhm-featured-orig";a:4:{s:4:"file";s:50:"Screen_Shot_2018-08-29_at_11.22.05_AM1-600x338.png";s:5:"width";i:600;s:6:"height";i:338;s:9:"mime-type";s:9:"image/png";}s:25:"wbhm-featured-square-orig";a:4:{s:4:"file";s:50:"Screen_Shot_2018-08-29_at_11.22.05_AM1-300x300.png";s:5:"width";i:300;s:6:"height";i:300;s:9:"mime-type";s:9:"image/png";}s:23:"wbhm-featured-home-orig";a:4:{s:4:"file";s:50:"Screen_Shot_2018-08-29_at_11.22.05_AM1-232x311.png";s:5:"width";i:232;s:6:"height";i:311;s:9:"mime-type";s:9:"image/png";}s:27:"wbhm-featured-carousel-orig";a:4:{s:4:"file";s:50:"Screen_Shot_2018-08-29_at_11.22.05_AM1-198x265.png";s:5:"width";i:198;s:6:"height";i:265;s:9:"mime-type";s:9:"image/png";}s:19:"post-thumbnail-orig";a:4:{s:4:"file";s:50:"Screen_Shot_2018-08-29_at_11.22.05_AM1-125x125.png";s:5:"width";i:125;s:6:"height";i:125;s:9:"mime-type";s:9:"image/png";}}
        )

    [_imagify_data] => Array
        (
            [0] => a:2:{s:5:"sizes";a:1:{s:4:"full";a:2:{s:7:"success";b:0;s:5:"error";s:28:"The file could not be saved.";}}s:5:"stats";a:3:{s:13:"original_size";i:0;s:14:"optimized_size";i:0;s:7:"percent";i:0;}}
        )

    [_imagify_status] => Array
        (
            [0] => error
        )

    [_imagify_optimization_level] => Array
        (
            [0] => 0
        )

)
1662590151 
1535697606

School’s only been in for a couple of weeks, but at Thompson High School in Alabaster, engineering students have already begun work on their first assignment: Build a solar powered generator for refugees in Kenya. It’s one of several innovations the students have devised to help poverty-stricken schools across the globe. Their teacher, Brian Copes, has won numerous awards for the impact he has on students both here and abroad.

red Bradley GT retrofitted with special batteries

Source: Alexander Richey,WBHM
Inside the Bradley GT retrofitted with special batteries.

that electrical charge will turn the salt water into a chlorine bleach

Copes’ classroom feels like a cross between the set of “Back to The Future” and a mad man’s workshop. There are half-built cars, an assortment of large industrial-looking batteries, and tons and tons of tools scattered around the shop. On the first day back to class, about a dozen students gather in the shop as Copes explains their assignment:

“We hook it up to a car battery and basically that electrical charge will turn the salt water into a chlorine bleach,” Copes says.

He wants them to build a water chlorinator to provide clean water to developing nations. Some of the class’s recent designs are being put to use more than a thousand miles away.

Summer Honeycutt, a senior at Thompson, worked on last year’s project: a portable classrooms and computer labs for a sister school in Central America.

“I worked on a container classroom,” she says. “[We] made a welding container out of a 40-foot [shipping] container, and that’s actually in Honduras right now.”

Copes and his students have traveled to schools in Honduras several times to install some of the technology they’ve developed. They’ve built utility vehicles made out of pipe and prosthetic legs assembled from car parts. But years ago he never envisioned himself teaching engineering. He was a carpenter.

Students standing in the classroom with engineering teacher, Brian Copes, talking about their project for the 2018-2019 school year

Source: Alexander Richey, WBHM
Brian Copes’ 2018-2019 engineering class.

“I don’t have that engineering background,” Copes says. “It’s just, over the years I thought I was going to teach woodshop, but my title just kept changing and evolving to ‘ok, I’m an engineering teacher now.”

Copes has since won numerous accolades for his teaching. And that’s not surprising to Koen Timmers, a teacher from Belgium and fellow competitor for the 2018 Global Teacher Prize.

Copes and Timmers met at a conference in Dubai. Timmers had a problem: students in refugee camps in Kenya took classes over Skype. But the diesel generators that powered the computers at the camp were unreliable and expensive. So Timmers asked Copes and his students to develop a solar power generator that was cheap and portable.

“And he told me consider it done,” Timmers says. “A few months later Brian sent me a picture of the solar suitcase and they even designed a logo. I was amazed.”

This solar suitcase will help power the virtual classrooms for students in Kenya.

Source: Alexander Richey, WBHM
This solar suitcase will help power the virtual classrooms for students in Kenya.

Timmers says he admires Copes’ creativity and his willingness to take action. And for Copes, these service learning projects are a lesson on the impact students can make in the world.

“When the opportunity comes up are you going to be scared to make that step or are you going to make an excuse,” Copes asks. “Or are you going to say it’s what I’m here for and go out and make a difference in the world while I can?”

And Copes says if that’s one lesson his students take home, that’s the ultimate prize.

 

Postal traffic to US drops more than 80% after trade exemption rule ends, UN agency says

The de minimis rule that allowed small packages worth less than $800 to be exempt from tariffs ended on Friday, Aug. 29, 2025.

Colombia’s lone Amazon port faces drying river and rising tensions with Peru

Colombia's only Amazon port town could soon be cut off from the river that keeps it alive. As drought and a shifting river spark a tense border dispute with Peru, locals are scrambling to adapt—and politicians are raising flags, literally.

Sunday Puzzle: Common denominator

NPR's Ayesha Rascoe plays the puzzle with Weekend Edition puzzlemaster Will Shortz along with listener Cynthia Rose of Littleton, Colorado.

South Korea says it has reached a deal with the US for the release of workers in a Georgia plant

More than 300 South Korean workers were detained in an immigration raid on Thursday. Presidential chief of staff Kang Hoon-sik said South Korea plans to send a charter plane to bring the workers home.

Hitch a ride to the moon in a rusty old car and ‘The Couch in the Yard’

As the sun sets in a small town, a family loads up their rusty old car with the spare couch in their yard. When it breaks down in the mountains, what else is there to do but fly it to the moon?

The silent killer increases your risk of stroke and dementia. Here’s how to control it

New recommendations for early treatment for hypertension to prevent strokes, heart attacks and dementia come as an experimental medication is shown to lower blood pressure in hard to treat patients.

More Front Page Coverage