The Lou-Vee-Air(tm)Car evolved from a wonderful book my former wife bought for me at the Westminster Abbey Bookstore in 1976. It was a large paperback from Osborne titled something like Things that can Fly, Float and Roll that You Can Make From Paper. I found a little car powered by a rubber band in it, brought it to school the next fall, and never saw the book again. I hope the kid who "borrowed" it without asking has become a climate scientist or wind power engineer. He/she must have been very interested in science!
Anyway, I developed the Lou-Vee-Air(TM) Car and first published my plans Engergy Module of the Department of Defense S/T/S Science,Technology and Society lab-based textbook in 1983. It was further developed by Earl Morse of DoDDS and became part of the technology/engineering competition with the DoDDS Science Olympiad in Germany. I published a fully developed article about it, with the editor's special caption about Improving one Self Confidence, in The Science Teacher, Feb. 1988. Partly through the power of my publishing experiences, I was selected as Site Coordinator for the LSU/NSF Physical Science Program in Baton Rouge when I retired from DoDDS in 1995. My AirCar (named with my name spelled phonetically) was given a full page in the Holt Reinhart Blue STS textbook about that same time, and the AP and NBC Nightly News showed President Clinton and Secretary of Education Riley admiring the Lou-Vee-Air(TM)Car produced and operated at Northbrook, Illinois as they celebrated Northbrook's achievement of "Top of the World" in the TIMS science test in 1997. It made the front page of the Bulletin of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in April 1997, and continues to be used in the very successful MESA (Math, Science, and Engineering Achievement Program) in schools like Arizona State University, Harvey Mudd College, Cal Poly, and other fine schools of science and engineerings. Even a female astronaut explained that her decision to pursue a career in sciene and engineering developed from her MESA experiences.
At LSU, I developed a commercial version of the Lou-Vee-Air(TM) Car, and introduced it at my booth at the NSTA national convention in 1997 in New Orleans. It was featured by Cusinaire, Carolina Biological, Sargent Welch, and other major science supply companies. Since then, it can be found in CENCO, Edmund, Wards Natural Science, Sargent Welch, and Science Kit.
In May, I shipped 10,000 Lou-Vee-AirCars to the fine nationally acclaimed Arc of Iberia in Louisiana, where my AirCar kits are processed and shipped to my customers.
The new AirCAr is called the Mark VI, and it looks like the Mark V, but is easier and faster to assemble. Immediately an instructor in the Computer Sciences department of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette ordered a set, saying "I could write a book about all the ways this AirCar can be used in instruction!"
In Bangkok, at Assumption University, a Thai admiral allowed me to take his picture with a Mark V aircar, and students from China posed with it in 2007. A Cambodian student who finished her Ph.D. in 2008 posed with another Lou-Vee-Air(TM) invention that same year - the HLG, which is a Hand Launched Glider made fron paper clips, shis-kabob sticks, and an old file folder. Plans for that will follow on this blog or in my forthcoming Newsletter.
Meanwhile, here's my new Mark VI AirCar. You can order a single AirCar directly from Sargent Welch or call me at 857 373 9017. Single AirCars for $9.95 plus $4.05 for processing and shipping by contacting me at drhanzonscience@gmail.com
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