Home Depot Community Improvement Grant for Ctrl-Z

Ctrl-Z is a youth robotics organization that works under FIRST. The main objective of our group is to teach high schoolers the importance of STEM and teamwork by building a robot to perform in competitions against other FIRST teams. However, Ctrl-Z is a very outreach oriented team. Much of our time is spent thinking of ways that we could better our community by spreading STEM and FIRST values.

Starting at conception, in 2011, Ctrl-Z wanted to be an impact on the community. Over the past five years that Ctrl-Z has been around, we have created multiple lower level robotics teams for younger kids. We also hold demonstrations throughout the year to spread knowledge about our team and FIRST. In these demos, we go to schools, camps, and festivals to reach a broad range of people who might be interested in what we do. Although we started with only a few demos through our first year, we now average around twenty-five demos per year. Ctrl-Z members help out with science based camps as well. We are active leaders in four summer camps around our area. This year, we have organized our very own camp, the Summer Youth Robotics Academy, (SYRA)  to debut this summer that focuses on teaching kids of minority ethnicities and lower socioeconomic class about STEM and FIRST.

Ctrl-Z members are trained to be proficient in many skills, both related to the engineering of building a robot and to the less technical side of running an organization - public speaking, business organization, etc. Because a large portion of Ctrl-Z is aimed at creating a competitive robot for the year’s competition, each student is given basic machining and building skills. We learn how to use basic power tools such as drills and jigsaws, but also larger machinery such as a band saw or chop saw. We also learn how to use Computer Aided Design to design each piece of our robot in 3-D. But because we are also very focused on outreach, each student learns how to give an elevator speech, describe what our robot does and how it works, and also basic teaching and leading skills so that we may best be involved in our community.

This year, along with SYRA, Ctrl-Z has plans to work with Habitat for Humanity to bring our mission to Mississippi. We want to spread FIRST and STEM values, but we believe that it is important to give back to the community as much as possible, and as such we plan to help Habitat for Humanity build houses for those of lower socioeconomic class who we also wish to help educate. Ctrl-Z would like the help of Home Depot in reaching this goal. With the tools and material that can be provided as well as the professionalism and skill of our team, we believe that real quality can be reached and many members of the community in Mississippi can be helped.

Hamburger Helper is on FIRE With a Great Mixtape

Easy cooking recently just got even better. With the drop of Watch The Stove, Hamburger Helper’s April fools mixtape, creating a Hamburger Helper meal became so much more entertaining.

Lefty, the Hamburger Helper mascot, has been tweeting out progress reports on the new mixtape to build up hype for the project, in the months leading up to the release. The five track mixtape quickly went viral on soundcloud, the first track, Feed the Streets, gaining 2.56 million views within five days of the release. Feed the Streets is a certified banger, a hype track that people can’t help bobbing their head to.

The project was undertaken by music students at the McNally Smith College of Music in Minnesota when General Mills reached out to the school. Toki Wright, a rapper and producer who works at McNally Smith and is the department head for the nation’s first hip-hop studies program jumped at the chance to give his students this project.

And if the lack of experience of the producers doesn’t shock you, the topics might. Hip-hop is a genre mostly full of bravado, in which the artists show off their glamorous or gangster lifestyles to show that they are better than all of their competition. Watch the Stove takes an interestingly opposite approach to hip-hop than most of the famous artists these days. Instead of showing off a rich party lifestyle, the artists of the mixtape decide to glamorize Hamburger Helper, the cheap food brand.

The last song of the mixtape, In Love With the Glove, perfectly illustrates this as there seems to be an almost sexual feeling between the girl mentioned in the song and Hamburger Helper. The hook states that “She’s in love/ with that glove.” So while this does refer to how “she” might love the meals themselves, it may also refer to her actually loving Lefty, the mascot.

Even more ridiculous are the two music videos that were created with the project. The video for Crazy features young artist Theory rapping against a mac-and-cheese backdrop while describing the ease and cheapness with which Hamburger Helper can be used. In In Love With the Glove, you can see a young, beautiful woman dancing, drinking champagne, and going on car rides with Lefty in a hilarious fashion.

What was originally meant to be a fun April Fools project turned into possibly one of the greatest marketing schemes of all time. Not only did it flawlessly promote Hamburger Helper, getting even me to consider buying some, it jump started the careers of a few young artists in one of the best ways possible. Probably the hottest mixtape of 2016, I can only hope that the Hamburger Helper group is able to whip up some more fire in whatever studio they’re cooking in.