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Home  / News & Publications /  Michigan Catholic News / 2010 /  Tuskegee Spirit lives

by Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published March 5, 2010

Robert Delaney | The Michigan Catholic Addison Carter, 12, a ninth-grader at University Prep Science and Math High School, operates a working miniature steam engine as Deacon Robert Delbeke looks on.

DETROIT – Kennadi Barcley has a real feel for what automotive engineers are struggling with as they explore alternative fuel sources.

Kennadi's alternative-fuel model car, which she named Girl Power, racked up an impressive 11.25 miles before it exhausted its two double-A lithium batteries.

Of course, engineering students are working on alternative-fuel projects at universities all over the country. But Kennadi isn't a college student; in fact, she's a 13-year-old eighth-grader at St. Cecilia School in Detroit.

"I was surprised, because I thought one of the boys was going to win," she says of the success of her battery-powered model.

Kennadi got involved with alternative-fuel cars as part of what has come to be called the Tuskegee Spirits, after reading about the group several years ago in her parish bulletin at Sacred Heart Parish, Detroit.

Sponsored by the Detroit Catholic Pastoral Alliance as a way to improve understanding of science, mathematics and technology among Detroit schoolchildren, the group meets Saturdays mornings twice a month at the former St. Elizabeth School on the east side.

"It's fun," says Kennadi, as she tells how she has also learned about making model airplanes and rockets.

Robert Delaney | The Michigan Catholic With their completed go-kart are the proud team that put it together (clockwise from top): Wesley Brooks II, 12; Cullen Cowley, 9; Xavier Cowley, 13; Addison Carter, 12; and Steven Jones, 11

Besides that, she has had the opportunity to fly above Detroit in a single-engine plane, as have the other kids in the program.

About a dozen youngsters form the regular core of the Tuskegee Spirits, and about 50 kids have gone through the program in its four years since Deacon Robert Delbeke took on the project at the request of the DCPA.

A similar group, the Tuskegee Stars, which is an offshoot of the program at St. Elizabeth, meets at St. Luke Parish on the west side under the direction of Sr. Marie Roy, CSJ.

Deacon Delbeke – or Mr. Bob, as the kids call him – used to advise automotive manufacturers on how to use aluminum to reduce the weight, and therefore increase the fuel efficiency of cars and trucks, as an applications engineer for the Aluminum Company of America.

He's retired from that career now, and instead uses his engineering know-how to help prepare kids for a more successful future. By the same token, the 72-year-old hasn't let attaining senior deacon status keep him from helping out at Our Lady of the Rosary Parish in Detroit and as a chaplain in the dialysis unit at Henry Ford Hospital.

Deacon Delbeke

"Mr. Bob is awesome. He has taken all of his knowledge and skills, and is sharing them with us. He's a man of God, and I love him dearly for who he is and what he's teaching us," Kennadi says.

Although she has her eye on a medical career – as either an endocrinology doctor or an emergency room nurse – rather than as an automotive designer, Kennadi says she believes the greater understanding of science and math she has gained will help her in high school and college.

Deacon Delbeke says he consulted with Sr. Cathey DeSantis of the DCPA and with Koroy Brooks, a retired Detroit Schools principal, about the need and design for the program, and has been surprised at how much they have achieved.

He has two fellow teachers in the program, Wesley Brooks, a member of Sacred Heart Parish, Detroit, and Ed Bertrand, a member of St. Anne Parish, Ortonville.

One of the most advanced students to join the group in its early days, DeCovan Banks, had done some artistic renderings of futuristic cars, and they used his designs to craft the bodies of their experimental vehicles, which they then lowered onto the chassis made from parts purchased at dollar stores, Deacon Delbeke recalls.

Sign up to learn, or to teach The Tuskegee Spirits program is open to any child, aged 9-14. There is no charge, and enrollment is limited only by the number of teachers and adult volunteers. To enroll a child or volunteer to help, call Sr. Cathey DeSantis, CSJ, at the Detroit Catholic Pastoral Alliance, (313) 922-1435.

All of that involved learning how to measure, how to reduce a design to scale, how to make templates, and how to assemble parts to make the mechanical part of the model vehicles, he says.

"When we began, we didn't have any money, so the kids had to learn all the engineering involved. When you just buy a kit at the hobby store and assemble it, all the engineering has been done for you," Deacon Delbeke says.

He says the first battery-powered car went about 600 feet, but they kept working on improvements until Kennadi's achievement of 11.25 miles.

Besides lithium batteries, the kids have built solar-powered cars, wind-turbine cars, and cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells. "From my work for ALCOA, I had a lot of experience making something from nothing," he says.

Actually, they did have a little money in the beginning, thanks to the DCPA and the Congregation of St. Joseph, but now the program is better funded since receiving a $13,000 grant from the Jenny Jones Foundation, he says.

The grant makes it possible to buy some sophisticated model kits, and the parts for go-karts and other items, such as a small working steam engine.

That grant also allowed them to purchase microscopes, so they could study microbiology. "One of the alternative fuels we experimented with was biofuels from plants, and we grew the plants ourselves," Deacon Delbeke says.

The name of the group came as a result of a private airplane owner, the grandson of a Tuskegee Airman, seeing the group out in a parking lot flying the rubber-band powered planes they had designed and built.

"The kids all got invited out to Detroit City Airport, and taken up in a single-engine plane for rides above the city," Deacon Delbeke explains. After the plane's owner told them the story of the Tuskegee Airmen – the all-black Army Air Force unit in World War II – the kids themselves came up with the idea of calling their group the Tuskegee Spirits.

"Then, when we were shooting off rockets we had made over on Belle Isle, Fr. Norm Thomas (pastor of Sacred Heart Parish and administrator of St. Elizabeth Parish) asked how high they were going. Well, that led to me teaching them trigonometry so they could calculate it. They were able to tell Fr. Thomas their rocket had attained an altitude of 1,892 feet. Imagine, teaching trigonometry to students as young as the fifth grade!" Deacon Delbeke remarks.

But it isn't all science and math; Deacon Delbeke says the Gospel message infuses everything the group does. "For example, when we went fishing at a trout farm near Ann Arbor, as we barbecued and ate the fish the kids caught, we talked about how Jesus' first disciples were fishermen," he says.

Not all the kids are Catholic, but they all come from homes where religion is important, and that is reflected in not only their caring attitudes to each other, but also in what they share during group prayer sessions, Deacon Delbeke says.

Cullen Cowley, 9, is a member of the Tuskegee Spirits who often leads the group in prayer, says he also remembers the group in his daily prayers.

"Every day when I pray, I think about everything we do here, and appreciate how the teachers helped us," says Cullen, a fourth-grader at the Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Sr. Cathey DeSantis, CSJ, executive director of the DCPA, says, "Of all the programs in the alliance – and we have some great ones involving some great people – this is by far the most rewarding for me. Their enthusiasm for the program and their spirituality just fill me up."

Brooks, the retired principal, says the results of the program have been phenomenal, inspiring the children to learn even more. "The hands-on activities Mr. Bob has provided have taught the kids so many skills that they will have for a lifetime. It's an experience most kids in public schools, even in Catholic schools, will never have," says Brooks, a member of Sacred Heart, Detroit.

But for all the youngsters are getting out of the program, Deacon Delbeke says he has gotten a lot out of it as well. "I'm a two-time cancer survivor, and when we started this I was undergoing chemotherapy. The kids did more for me to keep me going than I did for them," he says.