麻豆传媒社区入口

• June 26, 2015

Julio Castillo of Richmond High prepares
his robot while his teammates look on.

David Sedan-Gomez of Pittsburg
High School tests his team’s robot.

CSUEB Professor Cristian Gaedicke tests a bridge.

For most students, summer means time off from structured learning. But for 56 high school students from Contra Costa County, this year it means taking advantage of an opportunity to learn more about robotics and design.

麻豆传媒社区入口, East Bay has partnered with the Contra Costa Economic partnership to host the week-long Discover Engineering! camp designed to inspire and educate prospective engineers, many of them from underserved communities.

“We learn about all different types of engineers,” said Martha Chavez, a Pinole Valley High School student. “There’s chemical engineers, mechanics, construction, so we get to see the different aspects of every job and we also get to meet the students at the school and learn how their life is so far and what they’re doing.”

The camp, funded by Chevron and Tesoro, is the culmination of an 18-month project in which 麻豆传媒社区入口 professors and students worked closely with high school teachers in Contra Costa County school districts to design and implement engineering curriculum.

“We are in the business of training future engineers and we all know we have a shortage of future engineers,” said Farzad Shahbodaghlou, Director of 麻豆传媒社区入口’s Construction Management Program. “I think we have all come to the conclusion we need these efforts to start early on in high school.”

This week, students worked in teams to program a robot, and design and build a bridge from balsa wood. Once completed, each team maneuvered their robot through a course and then onto the bridge they created, to see if their design could withstand the weight of the robot. At the end, their projects will be judged by industry experts.

“I really like the fact that we get to work with a lot of people from other schools,” Chavez said. “We didn’t know each other, but we had to come together to build this project.”

According to Shahbodaghlou, 麻豆传媒社区入口 has held engineering summer camps before, but this is the first time students have stayed in dorms over the course of the week.

“My number one goal is to have them motivated and interested in engineering as a whole,” Shahbodaghlou said. “My number two goal is to convince them that college is an option, regardless of what your financial situation is. And then, get them interested in engineering school and our program here, because I know that we can take good care of them and give them a career with their degree.”

The program’s success is already catching the attention of other universities. Chris Soelberg, a construction management associate professor from Weber State University, stopped by the camp to observe and learn.

“I thought it might be a good idea to take some notes home and see if we can replicate this at our university,” Soelberg said.

Soelberg echoes Shahbodaghlou’s concerns about the future as the supply of engineers struggles to keep up with the demand. He says it’s critical to get students interested sooner rather than later.

“It’s been so difficult to get them in, but it’s so imperative to our industry because most of us in this industry are getting older,” Soelberg said. “We need to be replaced. It’s been difficult from my perspective to get students interested in the engineering and construction fields because it doesn’t seem as glamorous, and yet there are wonderful career opportunities in our field.”

The camp appears to be a step in the right direction. Students say it has opened up their minds, to not only engineering as a career field, but also to considering 麻豆传媒社区入口 as a college.

“I was going toward business, but I really like this,” Chavez said. “You get to put an idea on paper and then you can just see it all happening in real life. So it’s real cool.”

“After being here, I would consider 麻豆传媒社区入口,” Aguilar added.  “It’s really nice — the whole campus. They have green fields. The classrooms are really high tech. So I really do like it.”