ARRL continues to develop the highly successful ARRL Teachers Institute on Wireless Technology. Much as is done with new equipment in the amateur radio hobby, a prototype is being tinkered with this week: TI3. The third phase of the program is centered around space. Teachers who have each been through the previous versions of the program are at ARRL Headquarters in Newington, Connecticut, to test the program.

ARRL Education and Learning Manager Steve Goodgame, K5ATA, said having the experienced educators on hand to test out the new training is invaluable. “This is really about taking it a step further – providing a highly specialized form of training. We’ve developed a good program, but you never know how well something is going to work in practice until you try it.”

The educator-hams of this first cohort couldn’t be happier to experiment with it.

“I like that it’s a small group and that it’s laid back and that we’re all in it knowing it is a beta group – so if something doesn't go exactly as planned, the people that are here are very flexible in changing what we’re doing,” said Megan Tucker, KQ4MAM, Dean of Curriculum/STEAM Specialist at Hillsborough Charter Academy in Hillsborough, Virginia.

Tucker earned all three levels of amateur license since last October. “For me, as someone who has been very dialed in to aerospace, it’s nice to get into something that is a little more technical. I was petrified coming in and the best part about this is that, once you’re here and you’re with other people, you see that everyone had different strengths and that is possible.”

The educators have built and released pico balloons, antennas for radio astronomy, and other more advanced projects within amateur radio. The cohort will cap off the week with a field trip to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Haystack Observatory.

The ARRL Teachers Institute on Wireless Technology is funded entirely by gifts to the ARRL Education Fund.