EVERYTHING AUBURN PODCAST

"Everything Geo Explorer Auburn"

Auburn University Office of Communications & Marketing Season 3 Episode 9

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 26:47

When Tim Hawthorne arrived at Auburn in the summer of 2024, he brought with him a lifelong love of exploration.

“I knew early on I wanted to become a geographer and travel the country,” Hawthorne said.

As the new chair of Auburn’s Department of Geosciences, Hawthorne found not only a professorship but a bold new endeavor. Soon after his arrival to the Plains, Auburn’s College of Sciences and Mathematics (COSAM) invested in a start‑up science lab on wheels — a project designed to spark curiosity and bring hands‑on STEM learning directly to communities across Alabama.

“We wanted to bring something big to the children and teachers of Alabama — something that gets them excited about the science and technology work we do here at Auburn and beyond,” Hawthorne said.

That vision accelerated in fall 2024 when COSAM purchased a used 2023 Thor Windsport RV from Bama RV. 

Their mission was ambitious: gut the entire vehicle and rebuild it from the ground up.

“This was built at Auburn by our faculty, students, and staff,” Hawthorne said. “Everything is hands‑on. There is movement, motion, and sensory engagement at every turn.”

The team transformed an old bathroom into a tornado tunnel. A former bedroom was converted into an augmented reality topography sandbox. Geosciences research associate Dustin Braden designed a custom vehicle wrap. Six months later, Geo Explorer Auburn — now the largest mobile geosciences‑themed lab in the world — roared to life.

“When people first see it, they’re like, ‘What is this thing?’” Hawthorne said. “Then they step inside and say, ‘It’s even cooler than I thought.’”

Last summer, the thirty-five‑foot, solar‑powered mobile lab logged 14,000 miles from San Diego to Oklahoma City to Gulf Shores, serving more than 5,000 students at open houses, school visits, and pop‑up events.

“We see more smiles than a dentist’s office,” joked Amanda Savrda, curriculum director for the Department of Geosciences.

Savrda — an Auburn alumna who has been “bleeding orange and blue” since her father began teaching at Auburn in 1986 — says the mobile lab advances Auburn’s land‑grant mission by taking STEM education directly into communities. Geo Explorer Auburn aligns with state of Alabama science and education standards, strengthening students’ foundations in science, technology, engineering, and math.

“It’s incredibly immersive,” she said. “Students can examine biological and mineral samples, study topography, and explore rainforests or coral reefs through virtual reality headsets.”

The mobile lab also offers students the opportunity to explore maps, gaze through microscopes, fly mini drones, and interact with touch screens displaying weather data.

And yes — there is even a simulated tornado.

“We have some powerful leaf blowers that can get us up to about an EF3 tornado,” Savrda said.

Students rotate through ten‑minute learning stations, and the curriculum continues to evolve with modern technology, including AI‑powered learning tools. 

The result? Kids step off the RV buzzing with excitement.

“They’re just fired up every visit,” Hawthorne said.

This summer, the geosciences team is shifting into high gear. Beginning in July, Geo Explorer Auburn will travel to Washington, D.C., then head west as part of Auburn’s official America 250 programming. The national tour will highlight environmental education, civic engagement, and public service while celebrating the nation’s 250th anniversary.

“We’re calling it America 250 Coast to Coast with Geo Explorer,” Hawthorne explained. “We’ll visit national parks, landmarks and wildlife refuges to tell the story of America’s public lands.”

The tour also brings Auburn innovation to a national stage — and brings those stories back home. 

Events are already planned in New Mexico, Virginia, and Gulf Shores State Park. The team kicked off the celebration last month at the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site, where they met pilots and Blackhawk helicopter crews from Fort Rucker.

“We want to inspire the rest of the country to get behind what we’re leading here at Auburn University,” Hawthorne said. “Our goal is to build more of these mobile labs across the U.S., with home base right here at Auburn.”

Support from the department’s education advisory council, Auburn alumni, and partners like 15 lightyears has helped fuel the project. Auburn undergraduate and graduate students also play a key role, serving as informal science educators and mentors.

“To have a fifth‑ or sixth‑grader talk with an Auburn student and hear, ‘I’m from your community, and I’m succeeding at Auburn,’ is a powerful moment,” Savrda said.

For Hawthorne — a National Geographic Explorer himself — the mission is personal.

“My parents always talked about the importance of education and taking care of others,” he said. “This is our way to pay it forward.”

For Savrda, the motivation is simple: passion.

“This shows the spirit of the Auburn family coming together to do something truly innovative,” she said.

Want to bring Geo Explorer Auburn to your school? Are you an Auburn alum interested in donating your time, talents, or resources? Visit Geo Explorer Auburn’s website to learn more — and follow Geo Explorer Auburn’s America 250 Coast to Coast summer road trip on Instagram and Facebook

Check out our Everything Auburn Podcast Hub!

Welcome into the Everything Auburn Podcast, the monthly podcast we get to have here on the campus, Auburn University. We get to speak to members of the Auburn Family, get to know a little bit more about them, what they do, what makes them tick, and what they're excited about. Today, I'm joined by Tim Hawthorne, the chair and professor of Department of Geosciences, and Amanda Savarta director, Curriculum and Department of Geosciences. Welcome to the Everything Auburn Podcast. Thank you for having us. We're excited to be here. Thanks for having us, Carter. It's awesome. We're glad you're here. Big thing we're here we want to talk about is your very cool bus that you have. That's the thing that kind of we started to talk about. We started seeing I've seen it parked in the parking lot of the Coliseum many, many times. And yeah. So let's just start from the very beginning. I'd love to hear about where the bus come from. How, where? How did we get to where we are today? What's the original idea? How long we've been doing it? Give me all the dirty details. Yeah. So I came to Auburn University in 2024 as the new department chair in Geosciences. As part of that, the College of Science and Math made a pretty generous investment in this opportunity. Geo Explorer Labs is really simple. The idea is we want to bring something big to the children and teachers of Alabama to get them even more excited about the science and technology work we do here at Auburn and beyond Auburn as well. So our mobile science lab, it's connected to state science and education standards that teachers love and they value. And we have to make sure our students are prepared for the tests that they're going to be taking for the school accreditation processes. Everything new is very hands on inside the lab as well. So children are always interactive. There's a lot of movement and motion throughout, and it's not just being lectured at. Right. It's all about engagement and really sensory level engagement with the technologies and the in the R-V as well. So in terms of how it kind of got started. So we were really lucky with that investment from Dean Thomas in the College of Science and Math. But then what happened from there was truly epic. We went to a local R-V company, Bama RV, out in Opelika. They're incredible partners and sort of told them what we wanted to do. And they they provided us with probably the best vehicle we could find. It was a 2023 used 36ft third Wind Sport RV, and it was so funny. The first time we met them, we talked about the price point that we were looking at and things like that, and they looked at us and they said, well, this thing is pristine. Why do you want to get rid of everything inside? And we explained, you know, we're going to got the whole thing and we're going to build it from scratch. And so our team of students, staff and faculty and this is where Amanda came in. Beginning in November of 2024, we started working to build this. It got on campus, I think it was the week after Thanksgiving in 2024, and then in about six months, we went from a used RV to what you see now, which is a mobile science lab with interactive learning stations as well. And I think, you know, we were talking earlier about the passion that I think drives this project. The passion was we took an RV and turned it into something that would be memorable and huge for the kids and the teachers that would see us. I mean, we did everything from taking an old bathroom and turning it into a tornado tunnel to taking an old bedroom, turning it into an augmented reality sandbox to teach about topography and contours and elevations. So that just shows you the spirit of the Auburn family coming together to do something really innovative for the students of the schools we go to. It's a really wonderful and this is a massive it's it cannot understate how large it is. It's a very large vehicle. And you see it in the parking lot. Get a really cool wrap on it. Geo explores all the cool things on it. So this is a great segue. You just talked about it. This is where you come in programing. You really are dictating a lot of what's actually happening in that vehicle. What are some of those programing things look like? Where did you kind of get your start in this? And when you get the crazy idea, I'm sure pitch of this is what we want to do. And then actually distilling that into a curriculum for these, these kids, it was actually really, really kind of fortuitous. I'm a departmental alumni for geosciences, and I've got a geology background and an education background. I was actually teaching locally at Auburn High School for six years, and I left to be home with my son. I had a baby and I was at an alumni meeting, and Doctor Hawthorne had come in as our new department chair and was talking about this idea that he had brought with him. And I kind of went up at the end of the meeting. I said, I'd like to be a part of this, and I was in quotes in retirement. Right. I'm home with my son. And so my my passion behind this comes from one being being local, being Alabama public school educated, being an Auburn alumni both in education and geoscience, and wanting to give back and be be part of this, it's really, really thrilling. And so with my perspectives, with my geoscience background, and as a teacher classroom teacher, I can really get behind everything that we're doing, not just for the students in Alabama and beyond, but even for the teachers as well, supporting them and educating students. It's amazing. That's really wonderful. You know, having being a parent myself, it's something that it's changed, right. And I think it's kind of natural. You start to think about now I have a daughter and I start to see these. I'm like, oh, that's a really I got to get my daughter on this bus, you know, and doing stuff like that more. It's becoming a little bit more. I'm looking for those things a little bit more. And to see Auburn having those resources is so incredible. I have to tell you, I was thinking about it. We see more smiles than a dentist's office like, and that's not even just K through 12 students. That's their little brothers and sisters that come on board. That may be toddlers, and they gravitate towards the sandbox to play in or even the the parents as well. And we have kids coming back for more. I think we had some students, fifth grade students from Creekside Elementary, which is a local school here recently, and they went through our learning stations but weren't able to see all of them. And some of them found out we were doing an event on campus a few weeks later, and they dragged their parents out to come and see us, and they said, well, I want to finish these stations. And so we're having that impact at the elementary school level. And then with the high school students we've been visiting in April, we have students coming back during later class blocks, you know, asking their, their, their physical education teachers, hey, I want to go see this science RV. And so that's been really special for us. The response has been great from the students and from the teachers and from families to it's been amazing. So walk me through what's the normal kind of operation here? We just rolled this up to elementary school high schools throughout the state. You know, you've you've already kind of mentioned it. We were talking before. I know you've gone on some pretty long road trips with this thing as well. What's that kind of travel mobile school look like in terms of local things? And when I say that, I mean kind of Alabama. So far we have gone summit to sea and and the rivers in between. So we've been up in northern Alabama. We've been down in Gulf Shores, we've been in almost Mississippi, we've been around town. And those visits oftentimes are very school visit focused, tied directly to state standards, a little bit more of a controlled scheduled learning environment. Students rotate through different learning stations related to things that they're learning in school. But we also have open house style events. And Tim can speak more to the the travel across the US because this was done last summer and there are plans to do that this summer too. Yeah. So in terms of the travel, I mean, I think one of the things that we really want to do is our goal is to build more of these across the US, with the home base being here at Auburn. But we want to inspire the rest of the country to kind of get behind what we're leading here at Auburn University. And so last summer, with the dean and the College of support, we did a road trip across the US. So we started here in Auburn, and we went all the way out to a big education and technology conference called the ESRI Education Summit in San Diego, California. During that trip, we were able to present right on the Bay in downtown San Diego. Just epic. Just totally epic. Cool thing. We probably had 4 or 5000 people see it during that visit. But then what was also cool is we're like, well, if we're going to drive all the way to California, we might as well meet some alumni and friends. And so what we did is we did a series of pop up events across the US. We met some alumni, one of our generous donors and Gab members in our department, Herb Martin. He set up an event with us in Oklahoma City, where we actually worked with the Oklahoma Geological Society and Foundation and some of their partners to talk about potentially bringing one of these to Oklahoma. Then we went to several other events across the US, including we were dead tired. I mean, we did this trip, I think, in like four days to get to California. Even with how many, how many people were driving three drivers, myself, Dustin and Tony, and we just would get up every morning at 4 or 5 a.m. and drive, you know, 8 to 10 hours most days. We started first day, we got to Oklahoma City. We did a 13 hour day. That was wild. But then we got to the very end of our trip towards San Diego and the way out, and what we were planning was an event. We went from Arizona, Tempe, Arizona, near Arizona State's campus. We did a podcast the evening before and an alumni event at a local establishment. Then the very next morning we got up at about 330, and we had to be outside of La Jolla, California for a school event

at about 2:

00 in the afternoon. And we were dead tired. I mean, we just driven across the country. And what was so cool about this, the minute we got there, these kids, they were in their summer school. They were just fired up. They were cheering. They were excited. We did this assembly and then we served about 150 kids in about three hours. And what was really neat about it was just their excitement. It energized us. I mean, I mentioned we were dead tired, but the minute those lights went on and we were there, it was just it was completely energizing to see their passion. And it really got our passion, like even flowing more as well. And then we came back across the US after the conference and our final stop, we stopped at a couple places, but our final stop was at the big event in mobile at the USS Alabama. Phenomenal event with alumni and friends. We probably served about 100 200 folks in just a really nice way to kind of end the experience. So we're going to do that again this summer. That was our test. I was going to say, yeah, you signed up again. That was our test. And so this year, as we all know, America 250 kind of a big deal here in the US. We're excited to be a part of it. So we're actually a part of Auburn University's official America 250 programing. And so one of the ideas we cooked up probably in like late November, early December of this previous semester year, we really sat down and said, how can we do something even bigger and better than last summer? And so the idea now that we've got the mobile lab really outfitted, we're hitting our stride. We've been talking with a lot of alumni and friends about what we can do. And so what we decided this year is we're going to be a little more epic than last year. We're going to call it America 250 Coast to Coast with Geo Explorer. We're actually going to start here and then go up the east eastern seaboard to Washington, D.C. we expect around Independence Day, do a couple of things in D.C. and then head across the country again visiting. And this is what I think is really cool. We're going to be visiting national parks, landmarks and national wildlife refuges to kind of tell the story about America's public lands and doing pop up events at these places with families and friends, and just have an opportunity to not only show the innovation that's happening at Auburn across the country, but also bring those stories back to campus. We're going to be doing interviews with alumni and friends about their careers. We're going to be showcasing some of the things we see at the parks and landscapes who visit as well. So we're just we're psyched about this. We're ready to go. That's a handful. Are you on this trip now? So I co-host in the Drive. I will be I will be going on some of the trip. I think that's the plan. What's what's really special? Last year last year's trip was was great. What's extra special this years we've got even more alumni that we've tapped into, not just folks who are, let's say, retired industry partners from the wheel and gas, for example. Or on the geography side of things, with ESRI, we have an alumni. That's in New Mexico, that's with the Park Service, and they have an event that they've planned at caldera that we're really excited about being part of. Jordan Ray is is also education and and and geoscience background. So we're excited to to visit with them and and there are going to be a bunch of people there for that too. I also I was going to add really quickly, in addition to the Summer July trip, America 250 is an entire year long celebration. And so we actually started about two weeks ago. We did an event locally here at the Tuskegee Airmen site just 20 minutes down the road. We were there with the National Park Service. We we worked with about 300 kids that day. We also met some of the pilots out at Fort Rucker and got some just epic conversations and shots with the the mobile app next to one of their blackhawk choppers. And so this has led to a conversation about coming out to Fort Rucker later this summer for one of their Stem aviation days. And we're just really excited to see that energy in these these partnerships kind of pop up. So if any of the listeners around the country hear this and are interested in us coming out to them, especially in that July trip, we'd love to. But throughout the year we're open to traveling elsewhere as well. We'll be going up to Virginia, I think, in October for a conference, and then we'll be traveling throughout the state and region throughout the year as well. So if you find yourself between somewhere in the middle of Washington, DC in California, you're in. Absolutely. It's possible. It's possible. And I think we plan to end in Alabama this year, probably at Gulf Shores State Park. We've done some events with with them down there and they're they're amazing. So that's not a far that's not a far drive for all of the particularly the local Alabama folks to come down and and hang out. Yeah. So as part of this, you know, I'm curious. It's a I have some I have some stats. Here is a you said it's a 35ft long bus. It's a lab. Right. What is all in this thing? Because that's what I'm really like. I'm just thinking, driving 13 hours with some microscopes behind me. I don't know if I'd be trusted to do that, but what's in this thing that we can, you know, from elementary kids to high schoolers, what are they getting on the bus to actually see? It's a solar powered bus, which I think is a really remarkably cool. But just what are some of the toys and gadgets get on this thing? So from a technology standpoint, we do have things that you would argue are relatively simple and expected in a science classroom, like a microscope. And so students are able to look at biological and mineral samples with those. We also have virtual reality headset. So recently students have been visiting the rainforest or they've been going to a coral reef. And that's amazing to watch them kind of freak out and be, you know, they're clinging to the to the table in front of them and they really feel like they're there. So that immersive nature of, of of going places is, is really awesome with those virtual reality headsets, especially until Tim decides to drive it to a rainforest. Oh yeah, 100%. We are about to build one in Central America. That is true. And additionally, we've got a lot of like interactive data sets on touchscreens too, so students can explore things like weather data. We really like Wendy or the Wendy app for that. And we have an augmented reality sandbox in the back of the RV. So we have kinetic sand and also a projector. And so as the students manipulate the sand, the topographic projection changes so they can think about landscapes and landforms and then also natural hazards. With that we, we have a a tornadic experience on the RV as well. The bathroom has been changed a little bit. We've got some powerful leaf blowers that can get us up to, we think an EF three tornado. So the students you can imagine really enjoy that. And then we also have some what we say off RV experiences. Students get to fly mini drones and explore different maps and geologic time. So there's we have a lot going on that let students think about the Earth as a system, whether it's something related to the atmosphere, the biosphere, the juicy, or the hydrosphere. So lots of good, good fun, I think. Also, what's really cool about it too is, you know, like I alluded to earlier, our team designed all of this. So there are companies that can kind of build these things for you. I mean, they're crazy expensive. Of course they do great work. But I think what's really innovative, and I hope the listeners take away from this, this was built at Auburn by Auburn faculty, students and staff, designed from like taking a bathroom and saying, let's build a tornado. Tuttle I mean, how complex is that? Right? Taking an old bedroom, turning it into an AR sandbox with some additional touch screens to to look at the the the water ecosystems of Alabama as an example. Like that doesn't happen at all universities. So I think one of the cool things about this for me is just seeing that passion come out and our students, faculty and staff taking these ideas that sound nuts, right? And then putting them into a mobile app. I mean, it's wild, and I think it's been really cool to do that as a professor. But also I think with our alumni, like Amanda said, what's been cool is the response from outside. When people see it first, they see they see it in the parking lot, like you said, and they're like, what the heck is this thing? Right? What's this big GeoGuessr? And then you bring em in and they're like, it's even cooler than I thought it would be. Right? And so I think the alumni industry partners have really helped drive this bus, pun intended. I think we've had some really great partnerships. CDW, the big tech company, provided a lot of generous technology as part of a partnership. You mentioned the solar powered nature of our interior that was donated by a really great friend of ours, Lisa Piercey, the CEO of 15 Light Years, a company that I've worked with previously in Florida. They donated the entire solar system and wiring for us to power the interior lab when we're driving. And just like that, that to me is what's been really cool about this. Seeing the excitement and the the core idea is it's supporting children. Right at the end of the day, I think that's what gets our alumni and friends excited, and they see the passion that we have and the passion that kids have when they step into this giant, crazy learning experience as well. Yeah, I think that's one of the cool things for me. We talked last month. We had some people from extension on, and something we talk about a lot on this podcast is like meeting people where they are, right? You look at Auburn University, you think that's a four year college, I'm going to get my degree. I'm going to get my master's and get my doctorate. And that's what I'm there for. Its after high school. It's my adult education, right? But there's so much more than what Auburn does and more Auburn can do. And what's really cool about this, which is what made me think about what we talk about last month of the extension, is it's going to see people where they at. We literally roll up to the school, and that's the principal at the school we visited last week at it was Randolph Elementary. She was like, this is like McWane Science Center in Birmingham pulling up to your school. And that is that is a very high concept. Some rare air McGuane Science Center. I grew up going there as well. So yeah, that's so cool because there's so many people that don't have opportunity to go to the McWane Science Center right in Birmingham, or do in or don't even know about those sorts of things. You just roll up to their their front door and bringing that to them, which is so incredible. If I can brag a little bit on y'all as well. You mentioned how it's all done in-house, people. There's companies you get to hire this. But even more than that, you guys have, if I understand correctly, your undergrad students and faculty are are the science teachers, which is also really awesome for them to get to do a great experience for them, but also what great outreach it is for Auburn and for these kids, these students to learn about teaching and education and furthering that for other people. And they're not just geoscience majors either. We have students that are getting a minor in 2D art. We have students that are pre dental, like that type of, you know, I kind of hope we indoctrinate some of them to the geosciences. But that's just, you know, my and I think to you know, the point you just brought up I think is really important. Is there there are other mobile science labs around the US that are doing phenomenal work, and some of them are more professionally staffed with, you know, professional educators. And it's just 2 or 3 educators, summer staff with students in college level like we are. But I think what's really to me, really exciting about this project is those Auburn student connections, right? To be able to have a child in fifth, sixth grade talking to an open student, saying, hey, I'm from your community. I'm from this neck of the woods in Alabama. I'm succeeding at Auburn and having that conversation. Like, I can't say just as a professor and a parent, how powerful that moment is. So I love the student mentoring angle of what we do. And I'd also say like what I think is cool. Amanda mentioned the idea of we have students from all majors that, you know, at the end of the day, our mobile lab is all about the Earth as a system. I mean, we like to say that could literally be anything, right? From what's in the ground or what's in the atmosphere and everything in between. And so the exposure to students from all majors, I think, really cultivates that idea of the explorer mindset that we're trying to do within the work we do in the mobile lab. And the work I've done is both a professor and as a National Geographic Explorer as well. Yeah, and science is all about curiosity, right? And curiosity is like a fundamental human experience. It doesn't matter if someone is two years old or 40 years old or like picking up a rock and being like, I'm going to take this home in my pocket. Like what? What's in it? What does it look like? Why is it this way? I mean, that's part of it. I back to Tim when Tim was mentioning the visit they did out in California at one of the schools, one of the the young women, one of the students found out that the floor was coming, and she brought her own rocks from home to look at under the microscope. My goodness, that's so cool. And at that point, I mean, we're not famous like, but she she was like, well, it's a geo. I'm going to I'm going to bring this and they're going to know them, they're going to have the answers for him. Yeah, that's so cool. And so that's that that type of response from the again the students is just awesome. What we're coming up on time here. So I want to give a few moments to kind of this is your this is a shameless plug moment of the podcast. If you listen to it always happens. Right. So someone wants to learn more. You know we want to see it spotted down the road, you know, try to figure out what's going on or you want it to come to your school. What is the best way to get in contact with you? Figure out, hey, I want this at my school, want this in my community. I want to meet you all. What's the best way? Yeah. So our website, really simple. GeoExplorerLabs.org Everything you need to know is on there. If you want to bring us to your school, there's a schedule a Visit link right there on the main page. It will send an email to myself, Amanda and our team and then we can kind of discuss the scheduling and things like that for the alumni and friends that are out there that would like to partner, whether that's a donation of time, talents or treasures, there's a way to connect with us on that site as well. It goes to us as an email. We're always looking for folks to join us, especially alumni, especially if they can drive a 35. You're looking for new, more drivers and just fun. Fun fact you do not need a CDL license. You can use a regular driver's license with additional training, so we're always looking for temporary staff to join us for that as well. But you know, what I would say is our website is pretty comprehensive. It also includes some more information coming up about our curriculum management system that we've customized and design our own. So we mentioned earlier that connection to the state science and education standards. Again, if you want to get into the schools, you have to be connected to those standards or you can't be in the schools. And so we haven't done a lot yet with the website on that. But coming this summer, we're going to have a lot more that shows all that curriculum management system. I just want to put in a shameless plug for this, because both Amanda and Dustin from our team really co-led this in a way that I think is spectacular and makes us stand out to other mobile labs around the US. We have a custom system that basically does 10 to 12 minute lessons throughout the RV, and at the end of it, you can spin out a report to the teachers that says, here are the standards they aced, here are the ones they struggled with, and here are some suggestions for improvement that to my knowledge, I haven't seen anything else like that in the mobile app space. And so we're able to show that connection to that education standards to the teachers. That's huge. That's what every teacher kind of dreams of. So we're really excited about that. We're also working this summer to develop some AI learning that comes with that too. So let's say you struggle with the concept. We're going to work on some lessons that can be AI supported that say, all right, AI is going to let you know you struggle with concept X. Here's a couple additional learning pathways from our curriculum you can use. So we're trying to modernize even beyond what we are in this continued innovate as we continue to have success as well. I don't know, Amanda, what else from your perspective? Yeah, I think with that too, thinking about the state standards, you know, the students don't they're not thinking about that. Right. But the the they're enjoying the fun of it. The teachers care a lot about that. And so we're also very fortunate to have a network of teachers. We've got an education advisory council. We've got some partners through another program at the university called Garrett. We've got some fellows there are actually coming onto campus on Friday, and we're all going to work together and brainstorm some curriculum stuff. So that's been really valuable to like, we're for the students. We're for the educators were for the families were for Alabama, were for anybody who wants us to come by and visit. So it's it's a it's good, it's good. It's it's thorough. It's rigorous and it's fun. That's I mean, what more could you ask for? Sounds like a great day to me. Well, I appreciate all the work that you guys have put into this. It's clearly a labor of love. And it's really awesome that Auburn University is doing things like this. It's been one of my favorite parts about doing this podcast is I've gotten to see so many cool things the university does, and all the outreach and education and cool things we get to do, and this is certainly an incredible one. Good luck on your summer travels across the country. That's quite the journey. I'm excited to see what you guys do and where you go and where you stop. But until then, we'll be back again next month with some more members of the Auburn family and figure out what they do and learn more about them. Until then, thanks for listening. If you want to listen to more, we got years worth of other podcasts back. You go listen to some other cool things and cool people we've gotten to speak with. War Eagle! War Eagle! War Eagle!