She is involved in grant writing in support of the festival and takes advantage of opportunities to promote it outside of Oxford to draw more people to town for the event.
“She’s done the Kinetics Festival for three years for no pay, which is an incredible undertaking, and she has created and amazing event for Oxford,” wrote Elise McWilliams in one of the nomination letters in support of Currie receiving the recognition. She explained that the festival was begun as part of Oxford’s Bicentennial celebration. “Most people would have just let it go then, but Kate took this small thread of a contribution to the community and created an absolutely fabulous event.”
In another nomination letter Alysia Fischer wrote that Currie and Miami sculpture professor Rod Northcutt have co-chaired the Kinetics Festival for two years.
“I would nominate them both, but it counts for Rod as part of his job at Miami University,” Fischer wrote. “Kate, on the other hand, has been doing it for free all this time.”
Kinetics is a branch of physics defined as relating to motion and the relationship between the motion of bodies and its causes, namely forces and torque.
The festival brings out all sorts of strange-looking contraptions people have created to illustrate and use kinetics. Many of those involve bicycles but many other things involving motion are used.
One of the stops at the festival is a water rocket station and it has inspired one young scientist.
“(The water rockets) are so wonderfully done that my son (14) is in honors science at (Talawanda High School) and for his independent research project this year, he is doing tests of these water rockets to see what factors most affect the height/distance of the rocket blasts,” wrote McWilliams. “He is directly inspired by this undertaking of Kate’s.”
The Citizen of the Year award is intended to recognize community accomplishments in the current calendar year and Kinetics Festival was in its third year in 2013, but several nominators felt the rapid growth of the event and tremendous success last April warranted the recognition.
“It is nice to see Oxford as the center for this kind of creativity. Perhaps most exciting for me as a scientist is to see children and young adults engage in science and creativity because it’s fun. Not only has Kate worked endlessly to make this event the best it can be, but she is also working along with the Talawanda School District and Miami University to develop curriculum around the event,” wrote Jason Rech in his nomination letter. “The 2013 event was truly amazing and as word spreads among both adults and youth, this event will continue to grow and engage young and old in fun science, art and engineering,”
Fischer wrote that Currie has written many grants to help with funding for the event and has worked with people in Oxford and the region to promote it.
“Earlier this fall, she was in the rain at the mini-MakerFaire at Washington Park in Cincinnati telling people about the event and getting them excited about bicycling, building, engineering and science,” Fischer wrote.
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