The National Aviation Hall of Fame in Ohio Welcomes the Joe Clark Innovation Lab
OH – The National Aviation Hall of Fame (NAHF) in Dayton, OH has just recently opened the Joe Clark Innovation Lab. The aviation lab is designed to excite and foster creativity in a new generation of aviation and aerospace enthusiasts. It was created inside the 17,000-square-foot Heritage Hall and Education Center, which is located at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. The new Joe Clark Innovation Lab was made possible with help from The Kettering Fund, The Berry Family Foundation and the National Aviation Heritage Alliance, as well as many other donations from businesses, organizations and individuals.
What Is the National Aviation Hall of Fame?
The National Aviation Hall of Fame was founded in 1962 in Ohio but not nationally charted until 1964 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed public law 88-372. The National Aviation Hall of Fame helps honor those who have contributed to the development, education, and advancement of aerospace and aviation.
The founders, including Gerald E. Weller, Gregory C. Karas, James W. Jacobs, John A. Lombard and Larry E. O’Neil, of the National Aviation Hall of Fame all had a deep love of Ohio, which is known as the birthplace of aviation. This is because the Wright Brothers were born in Ohio and completed a lot of their flight experiments in the state.
Because the NAHF is nationally chartered, the organization is responsible for reporting to Congress every year, but its operating expenses are paid for by membership dues and private donations. In addition to honoring aviation innovators, the NAHF also makes its goal to entice, excite, and educate future aerospace innovators. To that end, the National Aviation Hall of Fame has just opened the new Joe Clark Innovation Lab after 15 weeks of planning, hard work, and dedication.
Who Is Joe Clark?
The new immersive aviation innovation lab is named after Joe Clark, but you may need to become more familiar with his aviation accomplishments. Joe Clark is an NAHF Enshrinee who was born in Canada. However, his family moved to Washington, in the United States, about a month after his birth in 1941. Joe Clark went on to grow up, discover a love for aviation, go to college, and get his private pilot’s license.
During his storied aviation career, he designed the winglets on jet aircraft and cofounded Aviation Partners and Horizon Aviation. Joe Clark also helped Aviation Partners break the piston engine speed record in a modified P-51 Mustang. During the record-breaking flight, the P-51, piloted by Steven Hinton, flew at an astonishing 554 miles per hour.
What Is the Joe Clark Immersive Innovation Lab?
The Joe Clark Innovation Lab honors Joe Clark’s dedication to the advancement of aviation technology. The new lab is a 1,600-square-foot immersive environment. The space was designed with flexibility in mind so that children of all ages can learn about aviation through experiments and group projects. Just imagine younger children folding their first paper airplanes and then seeing whose plane flies the farthest or exploring a working model of a Prat and Whitney jet engine. Older children and teenagers can take advantage of the innovative technology, including 3D printers and scanners.
For challenging projects, participants can take advantage of the idea pad, which is a space that was designed explicitly for brainstorming and problem solving. It includes a futuristic glass wall and beanbag chairs.
Year-Round Learning in the Joe Clark Innovation Lab
The Joe Clark Innovation Lab will provide students with year-round learning opportunities. The lab will be open to groups and individuals who wish to perform experiments using the vast database of PBS-created curriculum and Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math (STEAM) concepts. The learning studio contains seven workstations where students can design, build, and test aviation projects, such as rockets and airplanes.
For the curious, there is a unique Aviation Petting Zoo. While this zoo doesn’t contain fuzzy animals, it does contain a wide variety of aviation-related materials that students and visitors can touch and explore in order to broaden their aviation knowledge.
The Hackeronics Lab
For students and visitors who can’t get enough of aviation via the petting zoo, the Joe Clark Innovation Lab also offers The Hackeronics Lab. This innovative lab provides students with the opportunity to explore broken aviation technology so that they can learn its primary functions.
The Joe Clark Innovation Lab is sure to excite children and teenagers who are interested in aviation history, technology, and flight, and those children may just go on to invent new aviation technologies so that the human race can continue to fly farther and faster than their predecessors.