Published: June 12, 2009 09:45 am      

Not your average teen

GREENVILLE — Parker Francis, a junior at Greenville High School, is far from your typical teen. Instead of spending his summer at the pool, chasing girls, vegging out in front of the television or playing mind-numbing video games, Francis will be spending the majority of his summer at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Francis, a member of the Robowranglers for the last two years, has been awarded an internship with INSPIRE (Interdisciplinary National Science Project Incorporating Research and Education) with the Online Learning Community (OLC) being the centerpiece of the program.

The OLC provides a place for INSPIRE students to interact with their peers, NASA experts and education specialists and exposes them to the many careers and opportunities at NASA.

Francis’ internship with INSPIRE will go from June 15 through August 13.

“I’m in tier 2b,” said Francis of his internship. “There’s different tiers in the INSPIRE program and 2b is for juniors. We get paid minimum wage for a 40-hour work week. As of right now I don’t know exactly what I’ll be doing because they haven’t given me my assignment yet. I should know by the end of this week. I’m so excited.”

Francis, along with 10 other students from approximately nine different states in the 2b tier, will be housed in the University of Houston-Clear Lake dormitories. As a group, the students will get bussed back and forth from the dorms to the space center.

As if acquiring this internship with NASA weren’t enough, Francis is also involved with Texas High School Aerospace Scholars (HAS). HAS is an interactive on-line learning experience, highlighted by a six-day internship where selected students are encouraged to study math, science, engineering or computer science by interacting with engineers at the NASA Johnson Space Center.

“It’s all online,” he said of HAS. “There’s a series of 10 lessons with reading, a quiz, an essay you have to write and a math problem every two weeks that we have to submit online. At the end you’re required to do a final project and along with that is a one-week summer experience, which I’m doing right before my internship. It’s a week-long set of activities with about 40 other students at the Johnson Space Center.”

Francis learned of the INSPIRE program internship through HAS.

“They sent me an e-mail about the INSPIRE program the first couple of weeks,” said Francis. “I started to read into it and saw the internship. I thought it sounded really cool so I applied for it.”

None of this would have come about if it hadn’t been for the Robowranglers, Greenville High School’s robotics team sponsored by Innovation First, Inc., and L-3 Communications.

“The Robonauts team, which is comprised of students from the five high schools of Clear Creek Independent School district, are sponsored by mentors and engineers from Johnson Space Center,” said Francis. “I’ve talked to Lucien Junkin and he called one of the ladies that was involved with the INSPIRE program and put in a good work for me. He’s trying to get me into his program. They work on the lunar chariots. They’re building that up for when we go back to the moon in the next few years. I don’t know if he can get me into his program, but that would be great because I already know some of the engineers.”

The Robowranglers team — including the mentors — have done more for Francis than just provide a social network.

“In ninth grade I had planned on being a graphic designer,” said Francis. “But then a friend of mine was on the Robowranglers and I was pulled into robotics my tenth grade year. It made me reverse my mindset on my career choice and since then I have been pulled toward engineering. I’m addicted to robotics it now.”

John V-Neun, one of the Robowranglers’ mentors, was one of several individuals who were instrumental in Francis’ receiving the NASA internship, not to mention the push he needed to go into aerospace engineering and a letter of recommendation for the academy.

“John is a product of the program and he wants to give back to the program,” said Francis. “He’s probably one of the greatest teachers I’ve had. He’s really taught me a lot.”

Chris Grupido, an aerospace engineer from L-3 Communications, was another of Francis’ mentors, except Francis got hooked up with him through Independent Study Mentorship (ISM) at the Greenville High School.

“You choose a career you want to study for the year and of course I choose aerospace engineering,” he said. “They assign you a mentor from the community. He’s taught me so much and even wrote me a letter of recommendation for the academy.”

Francis has also applied to the Air Force Academy.

“I hope to gain entry into that,” said Francis. “Only 10 percent of applicants make it. So, as a fallback I’ve also applied to Purdue University in Indiana and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. They’re one of the top five colleges in the United States for Aerospace engineering, which is what I plan on doing. I’ve always been intrigued by the military and their planes.”

Now, don’t get the wrong impression here. Francis is a teen who does hangs out with his friends — though most of those are involved in the Robowranglers — and plays video games — though most involved some form of flight simulation.

He may have more, and somewhat varied interests than most and pursues them differently, but he is still a teen with full life of experiences ahead of him. Only this teen is more concerned with what those experiences can teach him to better further his career rather than the experiences themselves.